In a 35 days feeding trial, a total of 320 three weeks old chicks were assigned to eight treatments (T1 – T8) and each treatment was replicated four (4) times consisting of 10 birds per replicate in a 2�2�2 factorial design. The factors were two agro-industrial by-products, at two inclusion levels, with or without synbiotic (containing mannan oligosaccharide and Saccharomyces cerevisae) supplementation. Birds on T1 to T4 received wheat offal based diet at 20% (without synbiotic), 20% (with synbiotic), 40% (without synbiotic) and 40% (with synbiotic) respectively, while those on T5 to T8 received palm kernel cake based diet at 20% (without synbiotic), 20% (with synbiotic), 40% (without synbiotic) and 40% (with synbiotic) respectively. There was no significant effect of fibre source and fibre source level on all performance parameters except for feed intake, but synbiotic supplementation lowered (P<0.05) final body weight, body weight gain and increased feed conversion ratio. There was a significant decrease (P<0.05) in the E. coli colony count in the small intestine of the non-supplemented group compared to the supplemented group but no significant difference (P>0.05) was observed in the lactobacillus colony count in the small intestine between the supplemented and non-supplemented groups. Birds fed diets without synbiotic had higher (P<0.05) villi height, crypt depth and full mucosal in the jejunum than the birds fed diets supplemented with synbiotic. It was concluded that synbiotic had negative effect on the growth performance and intestinal health of broilers fed high fibre diets.
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