Combinations of cinnamaldehyde, thymol, and carvacrol have been found to decrease E. coli and lactobacilli in vivo in broiler chickens (Jamroz etal.,2003; Tiihonen etal.,2010), but there have been no data on the in vivo effect of clove oil or eugenol in broiler chicken intestinal microbiota.
In this study, microbiological counts and intestinal morphometry were studied in broiler chickens, and their growth performance was improved when fed 100 mg/kg of clove product.
Lactobacilli counts and E:L were increased for broiler chickens treated with clove.
This change in the ratio could be related to a positive selection of eugenol towards lactic acid bacteria as shown by Michiels et al.(2009).