Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances

Year: 2010
Volume: 9
Issue: 2
Page No. 406 - 413

Effect of Fasting or Post-Hatch Diet’s Type on Chick Development

Authors : S.A. Tabedian, A. Samie, J. Pourreza and Gh. Sadeghi

Abstract: An experiment was carried out to evaluate the effects of fasting and early diet composition on broiler chicken's development. A totally of 540 one-day old male broiler chicken were used in this study. The treatments were Control (C), fasted for 24 h (24F), fasted for 48 h (48F), feeding a diet containing 15% egg powder for 24 h (24E) or 48 h (48E), feeding a diet containing 20% glucose syrup for 24 h (24G) or 48 h (48G) and feeding a diet containing 15% egg powder and 20% glucose syrup for 24 h (24EG) or 48 h (48EG). At 7-21 days of age, the chicks who were fed with 48EG diet, had higher (p<0.05) weight gain than both the control and the other experimental groups. In entire experimental period (1-42 days) feeding E48 or EG48 resulted in higher weight gain than control group. Feed intake was not different for the experimental groups at 7-21 days of age. At 21-42 days of age, feeding E24 did result to higher feed intake than control. Over the entire experimental period, the chicks fed both egg powder and glucose syrup had significantly higher (p<0.05) feed intake than control. No significant differences in feed conversion ratios occurred among the treatment diet groups. At 21 days of age, feeding G diet for 48 h resulted in longer duodenum and ileum than other treatments. In addition, longer (p<0.05) jejunum length was found in chicks who received the GE diet in the first 48 h. Feeding E diet for 48 h did increase ileum weight significantly. At day 42, the 24G diet fed chick was found to have the highest duodenum and ileum weight. The results for morphological parameters show that feeding a diet containing egg powder and glucose syrup for 48 h resulted in higher duodenum Crypt Depth (CD) in comparison to chicks fed with diet containing egg powder for 48 h. No access to feed for 48 h decreased duodenum Villous Height (VH) and increased (p<0.05) duodenum CD and subsequently decreased VH:CD ratio on day 7. Feeding a diet containing egg powder and glucose syrup for 24 h resulted in longer VH and lower CD and subsequently higher VH:CD ratio in duodenum on day 7. On day 21, none of experimental treatments could affect the morphometric parameters of duodenum and ileum. Feeding EG diet for 48 h resulted in longer (p<0.05) ileum VH and higher VH:CD than chicks fasted for 24h on day 7. Chicks with no access to feed showed a comparable reduction in residual yolk suck weight as fed chicks. Feeding egg powder, glucose syrup and egg powder plus glucose syrup had no significant effect of yolk suck utilization by chicks during the first 24 or 48h post-hatch. The percentage of dressing weight was significantly (p<0.01) increased by feeding GE diet for 48 h or E diet for 24 h at day 21 and by feeding E diet for 48 h at day 42. The present study showed that the diet composition affects chick development post-hatch and feeding a semi-moist diet with high protein and suitable energy levels containing egg powder and glucose syrup for 48 h post-hatch is beneficial for post-hatch growth and considerable performance benefits than control.

How to cite this article:

S.A. Tabedian, A. Samie, J. Pourreza and Gh. Sadeghi, 2010. Effect of Fasting or Post-Hatch Diet’s Type on Chick Development. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 9: 406-413.

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