Application of Meal Feeding and Skip-A-Day Feeding With or Without Probiotics for Broiler Chickens Grown at High-Altitude to Prevent Ascites Mortality

Abstract

<b>Problem statement:</b> Ascites is a common rapid-growth-related problem in broiler chickens grown at high altitude where the partial pressure of oxygen is low and is marginally adequate to support the growth performance and ascites-related variables. A mismatch between the growth of oxygen supplying organs and the oxygen demanding organs causes ascites in broiler chickens. In the present study, broilers were subjected to two types of feed restriction with or without probiotics and changes in the growth rate of body organs were attributed to the incidence of ascites. <b>Approach:</b> Four hundred male day-old broiler chicks were randomly assigned in a completely randomized design to five treatments: (1) a control group fed ad libitum throughout the experiment (2) a group subjected to meal feeding during 5-11 days of age with feeding times from 08-12 h and 13-17 h, (3) a group similar to treatment 2 except to received probiotics, (4) a skip-a-day feeding with 24 h fasting on days 9 and 11 and (5) a group similar to treatment 4 except to received probiotics. Probiotics was only used during the feed restriction at 1 g L^-1 in the drinking water. Broilers reared on litter flooring from 1-49 days of age. <b>Results:</b> Both feed restriction programs used under conditions of the experiment resulted in poorer performance relative to the full-fed control but retarded growth caught up at the end of experiment. Carcass and breast yield were significantly (p&#8206;<0.05) reduced right after feed restriction but not later on. Heart and liver percentages showed a reverse growth pattern after termination of feed restriction. Feed restriction had no consistent effect on abdominal fat deposition. Broilers subjected to the feed restriction had significantly (p<0.05) lower proportion of right ventricle to total ventricles. Probiotics had no beneficial impact on the compensatory growth though they tended to reduce the mortality from ascites. <b>Conclusion:</b> Early feed restriction did not influence the proportional growth of body organs and had no significant impact on ascites incidence. Probiotics had a positive effect in prevention of ascites

Intermittent feeding programme and addition of &lt;i&gt;Bacillus subtilis&lt;/i&gt; based probiotics to the diet of growing broiler chickens: Influence on growth, hepatic enzymes and serum lipid metabolites profile

“…In the present study, there was no significant difference in AFP content as percentage of body weight among the treatments (Table 3). Similarly, Urdaneta-Rincon & Leeson (2002), Saleh et al (2005), Lippens et al (2009) and Saffar & Khajali (2010) reported that feed restriction had no effect on abdominal fat deposition. Although, some previous investigation has shown that feed restriction resulted in obesity and an increase in abdominal fat in broilers (Zhan et al 2007, Wijtten et al 2010.…”

“…Some researchers had reported no significant difference in body weight of broilers when they received intermittent feeding and broilers fed ad libitum (Saffar & Khajali 2010, Svihus et al 2010. However, Petek et al (2005) demonstrated that IFP effectively decreased body weight.…”

“…However, the high growth under ad libitum feeding is occasionally associated with increasing mortality and severe leg problems. Feed restriction in poultry has been commonly used to control the body weight (Fassbinder-Orth & Karasov 2006) and alleviate metabolic disorders such as ascites (Özkan et al 2006) and leg problems (Wijtten et al 2010, Saffar & Khajali 2010. Also the effect of feed restriction on lipid metabolism was documented in studies of some research groups (Lippens et al 2009, Yang et al 2010.…”

Impact of restricting feed and probiotic supplementation on growth performance, mortality and carcass traits of meat‐type quails

“…Probiotics have shown to relieve the stress caused by feed restriction and enhance the bird's immunocompetence (Mansoub & Kafshnochi, ). On the other hand, probiotics did not ameliorate the feed restriction adverse effects of on broiler performance (Saffar & Khajali, ). Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of quantitative feed restriction, with or without Protexin supplementation, on growth rate, feed utilization, mortality, and carcass of Japanese quails.…”

Thyroid Hormone and Blood Metabolites Concentrations of Broiler Chickens Subjected to Feeding Time Restriction

“…A number of variations of feed restriction including limiting the time of daily access to feed (Khetani et al, 2009;Onbasilar et al, 2009;Mohebodini et al, 2009), removal of feed for up to 8 h a d or skip-a-day feeding, allowing birds to feed only once/h and feeding once every other day (Demir et al, 2004;Khajali et al, 2007;El-Fiky et al, 2008;Benyi et al, 2009Benyi et al, , 2010Boostani et al, 2010;Saffar & Khajali, 2010), have been evaluated but results have been conflicting (Navidshad et al, 2006;Cornejo et al, 2007;Khetani et al, 2009;Ghazanfari et al, 2010). However, Mohebodini et al (2009) on the respective research indicated that although intermittent feeding through free access to feed during four periods of 2 h (06:00-08:00, 12:00-14:00, 18:00-20:00, and 24:00-02:00) from 7-21 d of age had lower on body weight gain than control (436.3 vs 495.3 g), but had no effect on weight gain during realimentation period from 22-42 d of age.…”