Probiotics role of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Bacillus subtilis in improving the health status of rabbits’ gastrointestinal tract

Abstract

Abstract Background Probiotics are direct-fed microbial feed supplements which can modulate the gut microflora by competing intestinal pathogens through a competitive process. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of feeding Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Bacillus subtilis or their mixture on blood biochemical constituents, intestinal pathogenic load and intestinal histological changes of growing New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. Results Serum total protein, albumin, and globulin were (P ≤ 0.05) increased for rabbits fed supplemented diets. Microbial pathogenic load of small intestinal and caecal contents (E. coli and C. perfringens) showed reduction (P ≤ 0.05) for rabbits fed supplemented diets, while, lactobacillus spp. recorded higher counts (P ≤ 0.05) in intestinal and caecal contents of rabbits fed probiotics supplemented diets than control group. Small intestine length, villus height and crypt depth were higher (P ≤ 0.05) with probiotic diets than control. Musculosa depth was depressed (P ≤ 0.05) with probiotic diets. Conclusions It could be concluded that the addition of Bacillus subtilis or Saccharomyces cerevisiae to diets of growing NZW rabbits by 0.1% is recommended to minimize the pathogenic intestinal load and increasing of beneficial lactobacillus strains as well as improving the intestinal barriers integrity.