Effect of supplementations in drinking water on growth performance, health status, and carcass quality of local Tre chickens

Abstract

A study was carried out to determine the effect of probiotic, multivitamin, and organic acid (acid butyric) supplementations in drinking water on growth performances, health status, and carcass quality of local chicken (Tre). A total of 480 Tre chickens at 4 weeks of age were randomly distributed in a completely randomized design experiment, with 4 treatments and 4 replicates (2 male and 2 female pens); each replicate consisted of a pen with 30 chickens/pen, the experimental data was collected during 10 weeks. Treatments used: (1) Control (Cont): Basal diet (B) without any supplementation; (2) PRO: B + 1% probiotic; (3) VIT: B+ 1% multivitamin product; (4) OA: B+1% butyric acid, all supplements were supplied in drinking water. The results showed the use of PRO had a significant highest in final weight (1032 g/ chicken) compared with control group (981.6 g/chicken), lead to better daily gain (ADG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (13.31 g/head/day and 3.02 g feed/g gain) to compare with the control group (12.5 g/head/day and 3.28 g feed/g gain) (P0.05). VIT and PRO adding in drinking water reduced feather pecking, and there was a reduction of Salmonella spp. and E. coli in the feces of Tre chickens in PRO and OA compared with control chickens. All treatments did not affect the carcass yield of the birds, but little improvement in the yellow meat color (b*=8.48) of chickens in VIT and PRO compared to the others. In general, adding probiotics at the level of 1% in drinking water could be better for improving ADG and FCR compared with multivitamins, acid butyric, and control treatments; adding probiotic and organic acid reduced Salmonella spp. and E. coli in the feces, while multivitamin supplementation reduced feather pecking and improved yellow meat color of Tre chickens.