Abstract

The European Union banned using all prophylactic antibiotics as growth promoters in poultry nutrition. As a result, the poultry nutritionist is now forced to look for growth promoting antibiotic alternatives, or at least considerably demote the amount of antibiotics used to sustain efficient broiler meat production and to be able to produce safe poultry egg and meat products. The Mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS), is a type of probiotics originated from the yeast cell wall (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has gained more prominent attention, mainly due to its ability to bind the threadlike fimbriae on pathogenic bacteria preventing them from attaching to the gut wall, thereby averting their stabilization and the resulting colonization and multiplication, up to the disease level, so it had been showed to be a most capable solution for antibiotic-free diets, as well as furnishing effective support for digestion and immunity in poultry. Several investigations confirmed that using MOS as a feed supplement in poultry diets allowed birds to achieve a similar trend as when they were fed a diet enriched with antibiotic growth promoters. In addition, MOS has also shown to have a positive affection on bodyweight gain, feed conversion ratio, egg weight, egg production, fertility, and hatchability thus ameliorating well-being, energy levels and performance of avian species. Furthermore, it is also thought that it plays a role as an antioxidant, helping with mineral retention, improving bone mineralization and subsequently the overall improvement the performance of poultry birds. This review article has aimed to illuminate its sources, mode of action and beneficial applications of MOS in poultry diet for improving, production, immunity, safeguarding health among consumers and it ought to be used as a natural growth promoter on a commercial level in order to replace synthetic antibiotics in the poultry industry.