**4. Conclusion**

Due to the great concern about AMR, it is imperative to avoid the use of antibiotics as growth promoters and look for effective alternatives that can help poultry production to improve the welfare of the poultry birds, performance, and production costs. As a result of all the studies that have been carried out, we can conclude that dietary addition of prebiotics has a positive effect on poultry production, highlighting the improvement of intestinal health, immune system, control of pathogens, and performance parameters, which are achieved through a series of interrelated mechanisms and interactions involving interactions between the organisms of the intestinal microbiota and the microbiota with the host animal. Nevertheless, effectiveness of prebiotics will depend on many factors, like the type of supplement, doses, composition of the basal diet, animal characteristics, and environmental condition, showing variable effects on poultry species, so that it is necessary to determine conditions under which prebiotics are effective

**253**

*Use of Prebiotics as an Alternative to Antibiotic Growth Promoters in the Poultry Industry*

and elucidate the mechanisms(s) of action involved, ensuring their effective use. Many studies have elucidated mechanisms involved in the effectiveness of prebiotics, but we believe that there is still information that remains to be discovered or that must be confirmed, including the identification of new prebiotics and their application in the poultry industry, for which we can take hold of the emerging

This research was supported by the Arkansas Bioscience Institute under the project Development of an avian model for evaluation early enteric microbial colonization on the gastrointestinal tract and immune function. The authors thank

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89053*

the CONACyT for the doctoral grant number 270730.

, Daniel Hernandez-Patlan1

1 Faculty of Superior Studies Cuautitlán, Multidisciplinary Research Unit L5, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Mexico State,

2 Department of Poultry Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas,

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

\*

\*Address all correspondence to: gtellez@uark.edu

provided the original work is properly cited.

, Billy M. Hargis2

analysis technologies.

**Acknowledgements**

**Author details**

Bruno Solis-Cruz1

Mexico

USA

and Guillermo Tellez2

*Use of Prebiotics as an Alternative to Antibiotic Growth Promoters in the Poultry Industry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89053*

and elucidate the mechanisms(s) of action involved, ensuring their effective use. Many studies have elucidated mechanisms involved in the effectiveness of prebiotics, but we believe that there is still information that remains to be discovered or that must be confirmed, including the identification of new prebiotics and their application in the poultry industry, for which we can take hold of the emerging analysis technologies.
