Abstract: The poultry industry is looking for ways to reduce its dependence on antibiotic growth-promoting agents and antimicrobial agents to avoid the production of drug-resistant bacteria and drug residues. Therefore, some natural substances, such as probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotic bacteria, organic acids, feed enzymes and phytogenic extracts, have gradually become the research focus on the development of poultry feed additives. In this paper, the beneficial effect, mechanism and matters needing attention of the antibiotic substitute used as feed additive in poultry breeding are described in detail, in hoping to lay a theoretical foundation for poultry production practice.