Effect of dietary acidification in broiler chickens: 1. Growth performance and nutrients ileal digestibility

• Main Authors: Fateme Khooshechin, Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, Rouhollah Nourmohammadi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2015-08-01
• Series: Italian Journal of Animal Science
• Subjects: Acidification diet; Broiler chicken; Nutrient retention; Relative weight of organs; Serum enzyme activity
• Online Access: http://www.aspajournal.it/index.php/ijas/article/view/3885

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary Orgacids® (organic acid; OA) supplementation on the productive performance, nutrients ileal digestibility, relative weight of organs and serum enzyme activities in broiler chickens. One hundred-sixty Ross 308 male chicks were randomly allotted to 4 dietary treatments: a nutritionally balanced basal diet supplemented with 0, 1, 2 and 3 OA g kg–1 of feed from 7 to 42 d of age. Each treatment had 4 replications with 10 broilers/replicate pen. As a result of this study, body weight, average daily gain and average daily feed intake increased (linear effect, P<0.05) at 3 g kg–1 of OA inclusion, whereas feed conversion ratio was negatively affected by dietary treatments (quadratic, P<0.05) as inclusion of OA increased to 2 g kg-1 and then decreased with further inclusion. Ileal digestibility of total phosphorus and relative weight of pancreas, heart and spleen increased (linear effect, P<0.05) with increasing inclusion of OA. Metabolizable energy corrected to zero nitrogen retention increased linearly and quadratically on increasing OA addition reaching a maximum at 2 g kg–1 diet. The results indicated that serum enzyme activity of alkaline phosphatase and alanine aminotransferase increased (linear effect, P<0.05) with increasing inclusion levels of OA, but lactate dehydrogenase decreased. In conclusion, these findings demonstrate that the OA supplementation at 3 g kg–1 of the diet resulted in optimal growth performance and nutrients digestibility.