Probióticos e enriquecimento ambiental na produção de frangos de corte

Abstract

The growing concern with animal welfare and the reduction of antibiotic use in production has driven the search for strategies capable of reconciling productive performance, intestinal health, and sustainability within production systems, in alignment with the principles of One Health. In this context, nutritional and environmental strategies such as the use of probiotics and environmental enrichment have gained prominence. This dissertation was structured into two chapters. Chapter I: Presents a literature review on the use of probiotics and environmental enrichment in broiler production, addressing their physiological mechanisms and effects on intestinal health, microbiota, behavior, welfare, and productive performance, as well as discussing the biological plausibility of interactions between nutritional and environmental strategies in modulating the physiological status of birds. Chapter II: Describes an experimental study conducted to evaluate the effects of the association between dietary additives and environmental enrichment on productive performance, carcass yield, and meat quality attributes. A total of 1,440 male broilers were used in a completely randomized design, arranged in a 3 x 2 factorial scheme, consisting of three dietary additive treatments (negative control, antibiotic growth promoter, or probiotic) and two rearing environments (with or without environmental enrichment), with eight replicates per treatment. Productive performance was evaluated throughout the experimental period, and at 42 days of age, carcass yield and meat quality analyses were also performed. Overall, no significant interaction between factors was observed for most of the evaluated variables, except for cooking loss. When analyzed separately, dietary additives influenced performance parameters from 1 to 21 days, while environmental enrichment affected feed intake from 1 to 35 days. Carcass yield was not influenced by the treatments. Regarding meat quality, isolated effects were observed for lightness (L*), and an interaction between factors was detected for cooking loss. It is concluded that probiotics and environmental enrichment did not present a consistent synergistic effect under the experimental conditions evaluated, although both factors exerted individual effects throughout the production cycle. These findings indicate that nutritional and management strategies may contribute at specific stages of production, with potential alignment to animal welfare and One Health principles.