Background and Aim: Antibiotic resistance poses a risk to human health and has therefore been the focus of research. One of the causes of this resistance is the use of antibiotics as feed additives for animal nutrition. The development of antibiotic resistance in poultry through nutrition feed has drawn attention to the need for alternative antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs). Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.), as a natural source of bioactive phytochemicals, is a potential AGP, but the effect of mangosteen-based treatment on antibiotic resistance in poultry has not been reported to date. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of mangosteen peel extract as an AGP on body weight gain, feed conversion rate (FCR), and the antibiotic resistance in broilers.

Materials and Methods: In this study, 30 1-day-old broiler chicks were divided into three groups. Group A (control) was not administered any treatment in the feed, Group B was treated with 0.3 g/kg colistin as the AGP in the feed, and Group C was treated with 2% mangosteen peel extract as the AGP in the feed; the treatments were administered for 30 days. The observed parameters included the effect of the treatments on body weight gain, feed intake, FCR, and the presentation of antibiotic resistance before and after the treatments (pre-treatment and post-treatment, respectively).

Results: Post-treatment, the body weight gain, and feed intake in the broilers were not significantly different among all the groups; however, the body weight gain and FCR were significantly different between the control group and the treatment groups in the 3rd week of treatment and were not significantly different between Groups B and C. The rate of antibiotic resistance to chloramphenicol increased significantly by 40% in Group B post-treatment, but no such increase was observed in Groups A and C.

Conclusion: The findings of our study indicate that compared with using colistin as an AGP using mangosteen peel extract as a natural AGP did not have any significantly different effect on body weight gain, feed intake, and FCR (p>0.05) but had a significantly different effect on the rate of antibiotic resistance in broilers (p<0.05). This study indicates the usefulness of mangosteen for improving the overall growth and production performance of broilers without increasing their antibiotic resistance.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, antibiotics, broiler, growth promoters, mangosteen.