Efficacy of Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product on intestinal health and productivity of coccidian-challenged laying hens.

A 37-d laying hen experiment was performed to determine the effect of Diamond V XPC(LS) (XPC(LS), Diamond V Mills, Cedar Rapids, IA) during a subclinical Eimeria maxima infection on intestinal health and productivity. Two hundred and sixteen 18-wk-old Brown Nick laying hens were allocated to 24 litter pens based on a weight class system (9 hens/pen). The trial was carried out as a 2 × 2 factorial design with XPC(LS) and E. maxima challenge as main factors. Birds were fed a corn/wheat-based mash prelayer diet from wk 18 to 20 (10.9 MJ/kg of AME and 13.7% CP) and a standard phase I layer diet from wk 20 to 24 (11.7 MJ/kg of AME and 15.3% CP) that were supplemented with XPC(LS) at the rate of 0 or 0.75 g/kg. Hens were orally inoculated on d 23 (22 wk of age) with either 1 mL of saline (not infected) or 10,000 sporulated E. maxima oocysts/bird in 1 mL of saline (infected). Effects of XPC(LS) on intestinal health were determined by E. maxima lesion scoring. Results of E. maxima lesions were analyzed by Fisher exact, whereas severity of lesions and production parameters were analyzed by ANOVA. Supplementation of XPC(LS) significantly reduced severity of E. maxima lesions (P < 0.05) from 1.1 to 0.8 in challenged hens. An overall significant effect of XPC(LS) supplementation was demonstrated on d 34 by decreasing the severity of lesions from 0.3 to 0.1. The E. maxima challenge decreased (P < 0.05) production performance between 7 and 14 d postchallenge by lowering egg weight from 50 to 47 g/egg and laying rate from 84 to 70% and increasing feed per dozen eggs (P < 0.01) from 1.60 to 2.06 kg. Results indicate that Diamond V XPC(LS) supplementation reduced intestinal damage caused by an E. maxima infection in laying hens.