Friday (7/8/2020) FMIPA UI held an open session for the promotion of a doctoral study program in the name of Hardi Julendra.
Through a dissertation entitled “Study of the Effectiveness of a Consortium of Lactic Acid Bacteria and Local Isolated Yeast with the Addition of Oligosaccharides in Supporting the Digestive System and Performance of Broiler Chickens”, Hardi Julendra successfully earned a Doctorate in Biology from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, promoted by Dr. Promotori Abinawanto.

“The aim of this research is to optimize the condition of the digestive tract microflora by reducing pathogenic bacteria and improving the microstructure of the intestinal mucosa, thereby affecting the digestibility, immunity, and performance of broiler chickens,” said Dr. Hardi.

In his dissertation summary, Dr. Hardi Julendra explained the background of his research problem: Indonesia’s increasing population has led to a growing demand for animal protein sources such as eggs, milk, and meat. This opens up opportunities for expanding livestock farming, particularly broiler chickens.

However, problems often arise in running a livestock business, particularly regarding livestock health.
The modern poultry industry has succeeded in improving the health status of livestock, accelerating the harvest time from 90 days to 30 days with a weight of between 1.5 – 2 (kg / head).

This rapid growth certainly causes problems for the digestive system related to energy metabolism, digestion rate and feed efficiency, even though almost 60-70% of livestock production costs are feed costs.

Not only that, strict biosecurity implementation also makes broiler chickens vulnerable to environmental stress and susceptible to disease.

To date, the livestock industry has frequently used antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) as a feed additive to improve performance, immunity, and optimize feed digestibility in livestock.
However, long-term use of AGPs in chickens results in residues in meat and egg products that affect human health.

The Government of the Republic of Indonesia in Law Number 41 of 2014 and technically explained in Permentan No. 14/2017 concerning the classification of animal drugs prohibits the use of antibiotics in animal feed, including the prohibition on the distribution of feed with additional AGPs (Directorate General of PKH, 2019a).

In fact, in the test results conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, it was found that 70.05% of feed circulating in Indonesia still contained 1-2 ppm AGPs such as bacitracin (35.11%), colistin (13.78%), and virginiamycin (12.64%) (Directorate General of PKH, 2019a).

Therefore, efforts are underway to find alternative solutions to AGPs to optimize the condition of the chicken’s digestive tract. One such solution is the use of probiotics.

Probiotics are living microorganisms that can provide health effects on their host organisms by influencing the development of pathogenic bacteria in the intestine.

Unfortunately, continued Dr. Hardi, currently probiotics are not able to answer several problems related to the effectiveness of use, such as product stability in the digestive tract of poultry, especially because they go through extreme conditions such as pH which affects the viability of probiotics in the digestive tract.

So he formulated the use of (consortium) Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) with yeast and the addition of prebiotics, to increase the opportunity to overcome these problems.
“The combined use of a consortium of lactic acid bacteria with yeast and the addition of prebiotics could potentially address these issues,” said Dr. Hardi.

The use of consortium as a feed additive has not taken into account the antagonistic effects of the two microbes and to anticipate these negative effects there is an opportunity to use oligosaccharides with the right formulation.

The use of oligosaccharides in the consortium has two advantages: first, it increases the viability of LAB, thereby improving intestinal health and immunity. Second, the yeast will receive a large supply of energy from the abundant LAB fermentation, thus increasing its growth and increasing its antibacterial ability.

Based on this description, research was conducted on the use of a consortium of LAB and yeast and oligosaccharides to determine antibacterial activity and the ability to grow in the intestine so as to provide effects like AGPs.

He hopes that his research can contribute to the growth of the livestock industry and the technology for making animal feed additives.