Effect of different phase level of medium chain triglycerides on growth performance, excreta microflora and blood profiles in broilers

In the past several decades, antibiotics have been widely used in livestock and poultry, being due to significantly improve growth performance and animal healthy, and protect animals from pathogenic microorganisms. The conduction of this study was to investigate the effect of different phase level of MCT on growth performance, excreta microflora and blood profiles in broilers for the possibility of alternative antibiotics. A total of 1125 ROSS 308 mixed-sex broilers with an average initial body weight (BW) 49 ± 0.79g (1 d of age) were used in this trial. They were randomly assigned to 3 treatments, with 15 birds of 25 replications in each treatment of following: CON (Basal diet); MCT1 (Starter, Grower, Finisher: Basal diet+0.1%, 0.075%, 0.05% of MCT), MCT2 (Starter, Grower, Finisher: Basal diet+0.1%, 0.1%, 0.1% of MCT). The experiment was conducted in 3 phases consisting of starter phase (from d 1 to 7), grower phase (from d 7 to 21) and finisher phase (from d 21 to 28). All data were statistically analyzed using the General Linear Model(GLM) procedure of the SAS program (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Orthogonal contrasts were used to test the effect of difference between of CON, MCT1 and MCT2(CON vs. MCT1&2, MCT1 vs. MCT2). The pen was used as an experimental unit for the productivity, blood profile and excreta microflora measurements. A criterion α level of P < 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance. Results indication that BWG was improved by 2.4% (MCT1) and 1.5% (MCT2), and FCR was decreased by 3.1% (MCT1) and 2.2% (MCT2) in broiler fed MCT compared with CON in the overall experiment phase(P=0.070, P=0.087, respectively). There was no difference on the concentration of white blood cells, IgG and lymphocyte, and excreta microflora have no effect was observed among treatments. Therefore, we suggested that MCT could be used in broiler dietary and supplementation at 0.1% feed may be suitable in the diet of broilers during d 7-d 21.