Effect of dietary supplementation of acidifiers and essential oils on growth performance and intestinal health of broiler.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of combinations of organic, inorganic acidifier and essential oil blends on growth performance and intestinal health of broilers. A total of 1,200 Vencobb 400 male and female chicks were randomly distributed to 6 treatment groups with 10 replicates of 20 birds each. Treatments groups were Control (C) without acidifier, combination of inorganic acid/organic acids (T1), combinations of organic acids (T2), combination of organic acids and essential oil (T3), combination of organic acids and medium chain fatty acids (T4) and double salted organic acid (T5). Corn-soybean diet supplemented with 5% meat and bone meal was fed to provoke challenges on intestinal health conditions. Body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, and livability were measured until 42 d on weekly basis. On d 42, intestinal lesion scoring and ileal microbial populations of birds (Total coliforms, Clostridium perfringens, lactic acid bacteria) were assessed. On d 42, combination of organic acids (T2) and organic acids with essential oil (T3) had shown significantly improved body weight and average daily gain over control (C) (P < 0.05). Combination of organic acids (T2) also showed signifi- cantly improved feed conversion by 5 points over control (P < 0.05). In terms of microbiological parameters, all the treatments except T5 had shown significantly lower (P < 0.05) bacterial enteritis lesions and Clostridial populations, over control. Based on the outcome of trial results, combination of organic acids (T2) and combination with essential oil (T3) had shown enhanced performance with better economic return under challenged dietary conditions with animal protein source. The findings of this study shed light on the supplementation of organic acids acidifiers as an able substitute to improve the performance of broilers without the use of feed antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]