AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE www.arccjournals.com/www.ijaronline.in *Corresponding author’s e-mail: daraashiq09@gmail.com 1 Department of Livestock Production Management, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences,Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar– 263 145, Uttarakhand, India. 2 Department of Physiology, NDRI, Karnal, 3 Department of Virology, IVRI, Mukhteshwar. Indian J. Anim. Res., 53 (2) 2019: 232-235 Print ISSN:0367-6722 / Online ISSN:0976-0555 Impact of supplementation of probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic on serum biochemical profile of crossbred calves Aashaq Hussain Dar* 1 , S.K. Singh 1 , Sanjay Kumar 1 , Irshad Ahmad Para 2 , K. Merina Devi 1 , Nitesh Kumar 1 , Aamir Suhail Khan 1 and Kurat-Ul-Ain 3 Department of Livestock Production Management, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar-263 145, Uttarakhand, India. Received: 19-08-2017 Accepted: 29-09-2017 DOI: 10.18805/ijar.B-3485 ABSTRACT A study was conducted on 24 fifteen day old crossbred calves that were divided into 4 groups of 6 calves each. The calves were fed different dietary treatments viz T 0 (control group) - basal diet, T 1 (probiotic group) - basal diet + Lactobacillus acidophilus @ 1 g/calf/day (2 x 10 10 cfu/ g), T 2 (prebiotic group) - basal diet + Mannan oligosaccharide (MOS) @ 4 g per calf/day and T 3 (synbiotic group) basal diet + Lactobacillus acidophilus @ 0.5 gm (2 x 10 10 cfu/ g) + 2 g MOS per calf/day respectively for a period of 90 days. Blood samples were taken at monthly interval and serum was separated to estimate different biochemical parameters. The results of study indicated that probiotic (Lactobacillus acidophilus), prebiotic (MOS) and synbiotic supplementation were effective in reduction of serum cholesterol and triglycerides at 60 th and 90 th day. Serum creatinine, glucose, urea and bilirubin were unaffected by dietary supplementation of probiotic, prebiotic (MOS) and synbiotic. There was no effect of T 1, T 2 and T 3 supplementation on Serum enzymes, Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and Alanine Amino Transferase (ALT). Key words: Crossbred calves, Cholesterol, Prebiotic, Probiotic, Synbiotic, Triglycerides. INTRODUCTION Herd life of cattle depends upon many factors including developments during the growing period of the animals’ life. In order to maximise profitability from a dairy enterprise by atleast 20 percent, milch animals need to be replaced every year with the healthy heifers. The cost of rearing of healthy calves is increasing with rising prices of inputs especially feed ingredients and supplements. The use of probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics as feed additives has increased in last few decades after the ban on sub-therapeutic antibiotics use as growth promoters. Increasing cost of antibiotics along with their residual effects coupled with the problem of antibiotic resistance has forced researchers to look for cheap and effective alternatives. Probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics cost comparatively less than other growth promoters and have been found effective in utilisation of nutrients, hence reducing feeding cost substantially. Heinrichs et al. (2003) and Jouany and Morgavi, (2007) proposed probiotics and prebiotics as alternative to antibiotics. Probiotics have multiple beneficial effects like improved body weight (Lesmeister et al., 2004), decreased diarroheal incidence (Timmerman et al., 2005), Haematological parameters (Dar et al., 2017a) production of bacteriocins(Mazmanian et al., 2008), immunomodulatory effects and decreased mortality (Magalhaes et al., 2008). Mannanoligosaccharide is non-digestible carbohydrate derived from Saccharomyces cerevesasiae cell wall, fermented in the large intestine that prevents adhesion of pathogenic bacteria to the mucous epithelium (Kogen and Kocher, 2007). Some researchers have reported that prebiotics like MOS has many properties like increased performance (Heinrichs et al., 2003), increased feed intake (Terre et al., 2007), enhanced immune response (Schumann, 2002) and better intestinal microbial balance (Quigley et al., 1997; Dar et al., 2017b). Shim, (2005) reported that synbiotics were more efficient than probiotics or prebiotics. Keeping the above facts in view, the present study was undertaken to study the effects of probiotic (Lactobacillus acidophilus), prebiotic (mannanoligosa- ccharide) and their combination (synbiotic) on biochemical profile of crossbred calves. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifteen days old, 24 crossbred calves were divided into 4 groups of 6 calves each. The calves were assigned to different dietary treatments viz, T 0 (control group) - basal diet, T 1 (probiotic group) - basal diet + Lactobacillus acidophilus @ 1 g/calf/day (2 x 10 10 cfu/ g), T 2 (prebiotic group) - basal diet + Mannan oligosaccharide (MOS) @ 4 g per calf/day and T 3 (synbiotic group) basal diet + Lactobacillus acidophilus @ 0.5 gm (2 x 10 10 cfu/ g) + 2 g MOS per calf/day respectively for a period of 90 days. The