Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Udgir-413517, Maharashtra, India
An experiment was conducted to study the effect of incorporation of short chain and medium chain fatty acid (SCMCFA) on feed intake and serum parameters in broiler chickens. Three hundred one-day-old AP-95 strain broiler chicks were reared under uniform managemental conditions. The broiler chicks were individually weighed and distributed randomly into five treatments having four replicates with 15 birds per replicate. Birds were fed either a control diets (C), control plus probiotics (500 mg/kg; P), control plus SCMCFA (1000 mg/kg; F), control plus butyric acid supplement (500 mg/kg; B) or control plus SCMCFA + butyric acid (1000 mg/kg + 500 mg/kg; FB) during pre-starter, starter and finisher phases. The intake followed similar trend in all the groups during the six-week study period, except a significant decline in feed intake in the probiotic fed group during the fifth week. Blood glucose, cholesterol and serum triglycerides were similar among the groups. These results indicated that dietary supplementation of SCMCFA showed no adverse effect on intake, performance and serum metabolites of broiler chicken.
Broilers, Feed intake, Serum chemistry, Short chain and medium chain fatty acid
