Compositions and methods are disclosed for providing beneficial effects to animals, including but not limited to increasing performance of the animal. In one embodiment, the animal is poultry. In another embodiment, the disclosure relates to a composition comprising one or more direct-fed microbials and one or more exogenous feed enzymes.
1. A feed additive composition consisting essentially of a direct fed microbial (DFM) consisting of strains: Bacillus subtilis 27 (Accession No. NRRL B-50105); Bacillus subtilis BS2084 (Accession No. NRRL B-50013); Bacillus subtilis 3AP4 (Accession No. ATCC PTA-6506); Bacillus licheniformis 842 (Accession No. NRRL B-50516); and Bacillus licheniformis 21 (Accession No. NRRL B-50134) and a xylanase, an amylase and a protease.
2. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the xylanase is an endo-1, 4-β-xylanase or a 1,4-β-xylosidase.
3. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the xylanase is from an organism selected from the group consisting of: Bacillus, Trichoderma, Thermomyces, Aspergillus, Penicillium , and Humicola.
4. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the amylase is selected from the group consisting of: an α-amylase, a G4-forming amylase, a β-amylase, and a γ-amylase.
5. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the amylase is an α-amylase.
6. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the amylase is derived from an organism selected from the group consisting of: Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Trichoderma spp. and Aspergillus spp.
7. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the protease is selected from the group consisting of: subtilisin, a bacillolysin, an alkaline serine protease, a keratinase, and a Nocardiopsis protease.
8. The composition of claim 1 , wherein the protease is a subtilisin.
9. A final feed product comprising the feed additive composition of claim 1 , wherein the concentration of DFM in the final feed product is from 2×10 3 CFU/ton to 2×10 11 CFU/ton.
10. A method for increasing the performance of an animal comprising: administering to an animal an effective amount of the feed additive composition of claim 1 .
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the increase in performance comprises an increase in a metric selected from the group consisting of: average daily feed intake, average daily weight gain, total weight gain, feed conversion, of feed:gain, feed conversion of gain:feed, and feed efficiency.
12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the increase in performance comprises a decrease in mortality.
13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the increase in performance comprises reduction in production costs.
14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the animal is poultry.
15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the animal is a broiler.
16. The method of claim 10 , wherein the xylanase is an endo-1,4-β-xylanase or a 1,4-β-xylosidase.
17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the amylase is selected from the group consisting of: an α-amylase, a G4-forming amylase, a β-amylase, and a γ-amylase.
18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the protease is selected from the group consisting of: subtilisin, a bacillolysin, an alkine serine protease, a keratinase, and a Nocardiopsis protease.
19. A method for reducing the incidence of paw lesions comprising administering to poultry an effective amount of the feed additive composition of claim 1 .
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the xylanase is an endo-1,4-β-xylanase or a 1,4-β-xylosidase.
21. The method of claim 19 , wherein the protease is selected from the group consisting of: subtilisin, a bacillolysin, an alkine serine protease, a keratinase, and a Nocardiopsis protease.