Abstract: The experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of atmospheric ammonia (0, 13, 26, 52 ppm) on growth performance and immunological response of broiler chickens during the 0-3 week period. Arbor Acres (AA) strain broiler chicks (n = 480, half males and half females, 1 day old broilers) were randomly allocated to four treatments. Each treatment had 12 replicates of 10 birds. The experiment lasted 3 weeks. At the end of the experiment, 12 birds from each treatment were randomly selected for determining the effect of ammonia on broilers. Results showed that Body Weight (BW) and Feed to Gain ratio (F/G) were significantly depressed (p<0.05) by 5.0 and 3.0%, respectively for the 52 ppm ammonia concentration as compared with the 0 ppm treatment. Relative lymphoid organ weights, both Concanavalin (ConA) and Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced peripheral lymphocyte proliferation were not significantly affected (p>0.05) by ammonia treatment but the relative organ weight decreased with increasing ammonia concentration. Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) hemagglutination inhibition antibody titer were lower (p<0.05) exposed to the 26 and 52 ppm ammonia than that of the 0 ppm treatment group. This study indicated that high atmospheric ammonia levels lowered growth performance and immunological response of broiler chickens.
Y.M. Wang, Q.P. Meng, Y.M. Guo, Y.Z. Wang, Z. Wang, Z.L. Yao and T.Z. Shan, 2010. Effect of Atmospheric Ammonia on Growth Performance and Immunological Response of Broiler Chickens. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 9: 2802-2806.