Staff Correspondent
Bangladesh’s poultry industry operators and farmers use prebiotics, probiotics and essential oils instead of antibiotics to help produce good quality meat and eggs, said a top leader of the poultry industry yesterday.
Prebiotics are specialised plant fibres that aid in stimulating healthy bacteria whereas probiotics are live microorganisms that have health benefits. Essential oils are concentrated extracts from plants.
“There is firm belief among consumers that we use antibiotics, but reality is that we are using prebiotics, probiotics and essential oils. Consumers can now buy eggs and chicken meat with a guarantee from the market if they want,” said Moshiur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh branch of the World’s Poultry Science Association (WPSA).
He made this remark on the opening day of a two-day international seminar on poultry in Dhaka, according to a press release.
Rahman said Bangladesh’s poultry industry has achieved notable success in the last three decades.
The poultry industry is now not only a source of animal protein as farms also produce a huge amount of biogas, organic fertiliser and even electricity, said Rahman, who is also managing director of Paragon Group.
He said an increased number of five-star hotels and international food chains in the country are now using locally produced chicken eggs and meat whereas they used to source the items from abroad.
He said the price of poultry feed raw materials has risen abnormally amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, which has fuelled the production cost of chicken eggs and meat in Bangladesh.
Everyone is blaming feed millers for the rise in poultry prices, but the reality is they are hardly making any profit now, said Shamsul Arefin Khaled, president of the executive committee of the Feed Industries Association of Bangladesh.
The prices of one-day-old chicks have been very low for the last one year, he said.
So, it is necessary to find out the amount of actual demand for poultry items and then go for their production.
“Otherwise, poultry prices will become unstable as sometimes there will be overproduction and sometimes underproduction. These will ultimately affect both farmers and consumers,” he added.
There are currently about 60 lakh poultry farmers in Bangladesh.

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