To understand the role of gut melatonin on digestive enzymes and performance, day-old chicks (n=144) were divided into three groups i.e. control, sham operated and pinealectomised and kept under continuous light. Half of the birds from each group were administered melatonin (5mg/kg b wt) intraperitonealy, up to 20 days. Birds were sacrificed at d 10 and 20. Pinealectomy did not produce any significant variation while exogenous melatonin supplementation produced a significant increase (P<0.05) in mucosal amylase, trypsin and improved feed conversion ratio indicating that under continuous light exogenous melatonin had a positive effect on some jejunal mucosal enzymes.
Melatonin, pinealectomy, enzymes, broiler performance
