Propolis supplementation affects performance, intestinal morphology, and bacterial population of broiler chickens

A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the effect of supplementing the diet of broiler chickens with propolis on growth, bacterial population of the intestine, antiviral serum concentration, intestinal morphology, and digestive enzyme activities in broiler chickens. Forty peer-reviewed articles that had been published between 2003 and 2019 were identified using the PRISMA protocol and included in the study. Data were analysed with mixed model methodology, in which the studies were considered random effects, whereas the level of supplemental propolis was considered a fixed effect. Responses to propolis supplementation in bodyweight (BW) and average daily gain (ADG) were quadratic, but average daily feed intake (ADFI) was not affected. Propolis supplementation improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) significantly as a linear function of the level of supplement. The optimum level of supplementation was between 256 and 262 mg/kg feed and produced maximum ADG and final BW. There was a tendency for mortality to decrease because of propolis supplementation. Propolis had no detectable effect on serum antiviral concentration, intestinal bacterial population or intestinal morphology. Among digestive enzymes, only sucrase increased linearly as propolis was increased. Thus, supplementation with propolis increased the growth performance of broiler chickens positively and the effect was dose dependent. This may have been partly because of an improvement in sucrase activity and other factors related to the nutritional content of propolis. Future study to evaluate specific bioactive compounds of propolis is therefore warranted.