Butyric acid glycerides in the diet of broiler chickens: effects on gut histology and carcass composition

Abstract

Aim of the study was to verify the effects of butyric acid glycerides, as a supplemental ingredient in the diet, on live performance of broiler chickens and on the morphology of their small intestine, since short chain fatty acids are known as selective protection factors against intestinal microbial parasites, potent growth promoters of the gut wall tissues, also in terms of immune modulation response. An experiment was carried out on 150 Ross 308 female chickens, allotted to 5 treatments, over a 35 d ays period: the control, with soybean oil as the energy supplement, and 4 treatments with increasing amounts (0.2, 0.35, 0.5, 1% mixed feed) of a mixture of butyric acid glycerides (mono-, di- and tri- glycerides). Treated animals showed a higher live weight at slaughtering (P<0.05) with a better feed conversion rate. The carcase characteristics were not influenced, but the small intestine wall resulted slightly modified with shorter villi, longer microvilli (P<0.01) and larger crypts depth in jejunum (P<0.01), only with lowest concentration of the supplement (0.2%). It is concluded that butyric acid glycerides are an efficient supplement to broilers&rsquo; diets, deserving particular attention as a possible alternative to antimicrobial drugs, which have been banned in Europe

Sodium butyrate in chicken nutrition: the dynamics of performance, gut microbiota, gut morphology, and immunity

“…Mansoub (2011) reported that dietary sodium butyrate increased the weight gain and FCR up to 28 days of age. (Antongiovanni et al, 2007;Leeson et al, 2005;Taherpour et al, 2009). Similarly, butyric acid enhanced the weight gain and FCR (Panda et al, 2009).…”

“…Adil et al (2010) reported that dietary butyric acid (3% application rate) significantly increased the villus height in the duodenum and jejunum only. Similarly, many researchers have described the beneficial effect of dietary sodium butyrate on villi height and crypt depth in broilers at different phases of their growth (Antongiovanni et al, 2007;Mallo et al, 2012;Panda et al, 2009;Sayrafi et al, 2011;Smulikowska et al, 2009). On the contrary, some researchers did not find any effect of dietary sodium butyrate on villi height and crypt depth (Leeson et al, 2005).…”

“…Beneficial health effects of butyrate or butyric acid are well documented, and it has been shown to have positive effects on broiler production parameters such as weight gain, feed intake, and FCR (Antongiovanni et al, 2007;Leeson et al, 2005;Taherpour et al, 2009). Chamba et al (2014) reported that partially coated sodium butyrate in broiler diet significantly increased the feed intake and weight gain, and improved FCR as compared to positive and negative controls during grower and finisher phases but not in the starter phase.…”

Monobutyrine: a novel feed additive in the diet of broiler chickens

“…Previous experiments of ours (Leeson et al, 2005;Antongiovanni et al, 2007) indicated that the effect of butyrate on the birds' gut is at the maximum level within the first two weeks. This is the reason why the results relative to 14 days are reported in Table 4 as the performance of the starter period.…”

“…The mono-, di-and tri-glycerides of butyric acid are to be preferred because easily absorbable and practically odourless. A blend of butyric glycerides produced very good results in previous trials with broilers (Leeson et al, 2005;Antongiovanni et al, 2007). The subject of the present study is the effect on the performance of broiler chickens of the monoglyceride of butyric acid (MB), as the unique butyric glyceride supplemented into the diet of broilers, possibly more efficient than the previously tested blend, because more easily absorbable.…”