Ali Akbar Salari; Ahmad Hassanabadi; Hassan Nassiri Moghaddam; Gholamali Kalidari
Volume 18, Issue 2 , June 2016, , Pages 323-334
Abstract
The aim of this experiment was to study the effects of hydrochloric and butyric acids addition to broiler diets on performance, carcass characteristics, intestinal microbial population and intestinal histology. Two hundred eighty Ross 308 one-day old female broiler chicks were assigned to 7 dietary treatments ...
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The aim of this experiment was to study the effects of hydrochloric and butyric acids addition to broiler diets on performance, carcass characteristics, intestinal microbial population and intestinal histology. Two hundred eighty Ross 308 one-day old female broiler chicks were assigned to 7 dietary treatments and 4 replicates of 10 chicks in a completely randomized design. Experimental treatments consisted of dietary addition of 2 levels of hydrochloric acid (1.5 and 3 percent), 2 levels of butyric acid (0.2 and 0.4 percent) and 2 levels of the acids mixture (1.5 + 0.4 and 3 + 0.2 percent) and a treatment with no acid supplementation as control group. Dietary hydrochloric and butyric acids during grower period decreased average body weight, significantly (P<0.05) in compare to control group. Supplemented acids, decreased feed intake and increased feed conversion ratio in the grower period in compare to control group, significantly (P<0.05). Acid treatments had no significant effect on carcass characteristics, microbial count of ileum and histology of the small intestine of broiler chickens in compare to control group. It could be concluded that using of hydrochloric and butyric acids in broiler diets have no positive effect on growth performance, carcass characteristics and morphology of the small intestine of broiler chickens.