A new study from researchers at Penn State has shown that there actually is a viable alternative to antibiotics in your chicken: probiotics! Researchers followed the growth and intestinal microbiota of 320 baby chicks on diets that separately included antibiotics, essential oils, probiotics, or none of the above for 21 days. While essential oils had no impact — which surprised the researchers — the group fed probiotics actually did better across the board than the group given a standard antibiotic. 

As the reality of antibiotic resistance becomes a greater and greater threat, antibiotic-free interventions, say the researchers, are more and more essential. And, get this, the reason why some (albeit far fewer these days) chicken farms feed their chicks antibiotics is not related to disease… it’s because the use of antibiotics has been shown to expedite growth! So, yeah, if probiotics work just as well, or …