DIETARY SUPPLEMENTATION OF FEED ACIDIFIERS ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS IN BROILER CHICKEN
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Date
2015
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COLLEGE OF VETERINARY AND ANIMAL SCIENCES-MANNUTHY,THRISSUR
Abstract
An experiment was conducted for a period of 42 days using two hundred, dayold straight run commercial broiler chicks (Ven Cobb) to study the effect of dietary supplementation of feed acidifiers on growth performance, nutrient utilization, gut microbial load and carcass characteristics. The birds were divided into four groups with five replicates of ten chicks in each replicate. The four dietary treatments consists of T1 (control ration as per BIS, 2007), T2 (control ration + propionic acid 2 g per kg of feed), T3 (control ration + formic acid 2 g per kg of feed) and T4 (control ration + propionic acid and formic acid each at 2 g per kg feed) using completely randomized design. Data on body weight, daily feed intake, feed conversion ratio, digestibility of nutrients, blood parameters (total protein, serum total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, calcium and inorganic phosphorus) and carcass characteristics (live weight, carcass weight, giblet yield, weight of internal organs and dressing percentage) were used for the evaluation of work. The cost of production per kg body weight gain was also calculated.
The results obtained in the present study showed significant difference among different treatment groups regarding the final body weight, cumulative body weight gain and average daily gain with a significantly higher (p<0.05) values observed for birds belonging to group T2 than that of group T3, while it was similar to that of groups T1 and T4. Dietary supplementation with propionic acid significantly (p<0.05) improved the digestibility of all nutrients except crude protein. However, there was no significant difference among the different treatment groups for availability of Ca and P, nitrogen balance, energy efficiency ratio, serum total cholesterol and carcass characteristics. However, serum HDL cholesterol and triglycerides showed significant difference among the four treatment groups and better observations (p<0.05) were recorded in group T2. Dietary supplementation of acidifiers significantly reduced faecal total viable count and the lowest count was
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observed in group T4. Moreover, propionic acid supplementation resulted in lower faecal coliform count compared to formic acid supplementation. Better protein efficiency ratio and production efficiency factor was also recorded with propionic acid supplementation. The feed cost per kg body weight gain for group T2 was lowest compared to other treatment groups. On summarizing the results, it can be concluded that propionic acid at 0.2 per cent level can be recommended as a feed additive in broiler chicken.
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