Phytogenic additives and glutamine plus glutamic acid in diet of broilers challenged with coccidiosis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation with phytogenic additives (FAs) and glutamine plus glutamic acid (Gln/Glu), as an alternative to performance enhancers antibiotics and anticoccidial (PEA/AC), on performance and carcass and parts yield of broilers challenged with Eimeria acervulina. Were distributed in a completely randomized design 600 male chicks into six treatments and four replicates: control diet (CD); CD+coccidiosis vaccine; CD+PEA/AC; CD+Gln/Glu; CD+FAs; CD+Gln/Glu+FAs. At 21 days of age, birds of treatment PEA/AC showed higher weight gain compared to birds of treatments CD+vaccine and CD+Gln/Glu, not differing from other treatments. The best feed conversion ratio (FC) observed was in the PEA treatment in comparison to the birds of the CD+Vaccine, DC+FAs and DC+Gln/Glu treatments. At 42 days of age the birds of CD+FAs had higher feed intake compared to treatment CD+Gln/Glu, not differing from other treatments. There were no differences for the variables of carcass and parts yield. In general, the best performance occurred at the birds of the treatments containing FAs and PEA/AC. The addition of phytogenic additives associated or not with glutamine and glutamic acid in the diet of broilers challenged with Eimeria acervulina, can replace performance enhancer antibiotics and anticoccidials. The data obtained were analyzed by GLM procedure of SPSS statistical program and means were compared by Tukey test at 5% probability.