Effects of breeder hen dietary Saccharomyces yeast postbiotic supplementation on progeny growth performance, body morphometrics, carcass yield – an industry-academic collaboration

As the world continues to grow in population and economic wealth, the demand for animal-derived protein continues to grow exponentially. With poultry being the second most animal-derived protein in the world, producers must become creative in maximizing the amount of lean meat produced per bird. In mammals and birds, studies demonstrated manipulating the mother’s diet influenced offspring development and growth from conception to market. In a growing body of literature, celluTEIN, a Saccharomyces yeast postbiotic ( SYP ), positively affected pre- and postnatal pig growth performance, and postnatal broiler and turkey growth performance under several conditions. Because broiler breeder hen SYP supplementation effects on post-hatch growth performance and carcass yield has not been explored, two 10,000-breeder hen houses were supplemented with 0 or 175 ppm SYP in their commercial breeder diet three weeks prior to egg collection. Once collected, eggs were incubated and broilers were raised under standard research conditions by treatment with growth performance and carcass yield data collected. There were no major differences in all growth performance measures except broilers from SYP-supplemented hens had worse body weight gain and feed conversion ratio during trail days 0 to 15. At harvest, there were no treatment effects on most part weights and yields, except carcasses from SYP hens had greater dressing percentage, tender weight and yield, greater rack yield, but had smaller thigh yield than CON progeny. Overall, breeder hen supplementation did not affect progeny d 0 to 42 growth performance but selectively affected carcass weights and yields indicating SYP may affect embryonic development.