Growth Performance, Intestinal Histomorphology, Blood Hematology and Serum Metabolites of Broilers Chickens Fed Diet Supplemented with Graded Levels of Acetic Acid

Objective: The present study was performed to determine the influence of dietary Acetic Acid (AA) supplementation on growth performance, intestinal histomorphology, blood hematology and serum constituents of broilers. Methodology: A total 200 chicks were randomly divided into five experimental groups with four replicates each (10 chicks/replicate) in a complete randomized design experiment. Treatments were as follow: (AA0: control, AA1: basal diet+0.1% acetic acid kg(-1), AA2: basal diet+0.2% acetic acid kg(-1) and AA3: basal diet+ 0.3% acetic acid kg(-1)). Results: The results showed that AA supplementation improved weight gain (p<0.001) and feed conversion ratio (p<0.001). Generally, acetic acid supplementation at 0.3% level improved bird's performance during 2-6 weeks of age. Increased intestinal length and higher intestinal weight were recorded in AA treated birds. Significant reduction in pH of proventriculus and ventriculus (p<0.01) was observed with in dose related manner. No significant effects were observed on dressing percentage. Histological observations revealed that intestinal morphology professed positive effects under AA treatment. Furthermore, the effect of dietary AA supplementation was significant (p<0.05) only on lymphocytes count and heterophil/lymphocyte ratio. It is obvious that blood of birds fed AA3 diet had the highest concentration of calcium, phosphorous, total protein and globulin comparing with the control diet and other levels of AA. The best results of all parameters were observed in AA3. Conclusion: Based on the results, it could be concluded that AA supplementations in feed employs positive effect on performance and intestinal histomorphology of broilers.