BONE QUALITY AND BLOOD MINERAL COMPOSITION OF BROILER CHICKENS FED LEVELS OF EUBIOTIC COMBINATION

Abstract

A feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the response of broiler chickens fed diets containing eubiotic combinations on bone quality and blood mineral composition. A total of 510 day old Ross broiler chicks were allotted randomly to five dietary treatments each replicated thrice, with 34 chicks per replicate. The diet

consisted of 0g of control diet, 9g Bacillus subtilis (BS) + 100g Essential oil (Eos), (9gBS+100gEos), 100g Essential oil (Eos) + 400g Organic acids (OA) (100g Eos+400g OA), 9g Bacillus subtilis(BS) + 400g Organic acids(OA) (9g BS+400g OA) for T1-T4 respectively while T5 had Oxytetracycline, an antibiotic growth promoter(AGP). Parameters collected were on tibia bone quality and blood mineral composition. All data were subjected to analysis of variance and significant differences among treatment means were compared using the Tukey test of significance. The result for bone quality showed that birds fed levels of eubiotic combination had significantly higher tibia bone ash than birds on control and AGPs. Eubiotic combinations increased bone strength, and absorption of blood minerals from the GIT. It was concluded that eubiotic combinations can be used as potential alternative to antibiotics in broiler chicken diet.