Dietary supplementation with acidifiers improves the growth performance, meat quality and intestinal health of broiler chickens

This experiment was conducted to study the effects of dietary supplementation with acidifiers on the growth performance, meat quality, and intestinal health of broiler chickens. A total of 648 male Arbor Acres broiler chickens at 1 d old were randomly divided into 6 groups, and each group consisted of 6 replicates with 18 broilers per replicate. The dietary treatments were as follows: negative control (NC, the basal diet), NC thorn antibiotic (enramycin, 8 mg/kg, positive control [PC]), NC thorn phosphoric acid (PA, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 g/kg), and NC thorn lactic acid (LA, 0.3 g/kg). The feeding trial lasted for 42 d. The results showed that the feed-to-gain ratio of the NC thorn acidifier groups was lower than that of the NC and PC groups from 1 to 42 d (P < 0.05). Compared with the values in the NC group, the pH of breast muscle was significantly higher in the NC thorn PA (0.2 g/kg) and LA (0.3 g/kg) groups (P < 0.05), and the cooking loss was lower in the breast muscle of the NC thorn PA (0.1 g/kg) and LA (0.3 g/kg) groups (P < 0.05). In addition, the shear force of the breast muscle and thigh muscle and the pH value in the crop, gizzard and duodenum of the antibiotic and acidifier groups were significantly decreased (P < 0.05). Moreover, the trypsin, chymotrypsin, and lipase activities of the duodenum in the NC thorn PA (0.2 and 0.3 g/kg) groups, as well as the villus height-to-crypt depth (VH:CD) ratio of the duodenum in the NC thorn PA (0.1 g/kg) group was significantly greater (P < 0.05) compared with those in the NC group. Meanwhile, the number of total aerobic bacteria, Escherichia coli and Salmonella in the cecum of the NC thorn PA (0.1 g/kg) and LA (0.3 g/kg) groups were decreased (P < 0.05). Collectively, diet supplementation with acidifiers could improve the growth performance, meat quality, and intestinal health of broilers, in which the effects of PA (0.1 g/kg and 0.2 g/kg) are better than the other supplementations. (C) 2021 Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd.