Effects of cereal type, enzyme and sodium butyrate addition on growth performance, carcass traits and intestinal morphology of broilers

Abstract

A 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement was conducted to evaluate the effects of cereal type (corn vs. wheat), enzyme supplementation (0 or 0.4 g/kg diet), and sodium butyrate addition (0 or 2 g/kg diet) on growth performance, carcass traits and intestinal morphology of male broilers from 10 to 42 d. A total of 600 male Arbor Acres chickens were assigned to eight dietary treatments in a completely randomized design, providing five replicate pens per treatment. Diets were formulated to meet or exceed NRC nutrient recommendations. When compared with birds fed corn-based diets, chickens fed wheat-based diets had inferior weight gain (1978 vs. 1807 g, p 0.05) on the relative weights of the proventriculus, gizzard, pancreas, liver and heart. Cereal type had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on intestinal morphology, including villus height and crypt depth. Jejunal villus height (p < 0.05) and crypt depth (p < 0.01) were improved by sodium butyrate addition. In conclusion, the results of this experiment showed that enzyme and sodium butyrate addition, especially to the wheat based diet, improve growth performance.

Keywords

• Enzyme
• sodium butyrate
• performance
• intestinal morphology