The effects of selenium, vitamin E and garlic powder on performance, immune system and carcass fat of broilers

This work was conducted to study the effects of organic selenium, vitamin E and garlic as different dietary antioxidants on the performance parameters, immune system and carcass fat deposition of broilers. The experiment was conducted using a total of 192 day-old male broiler chicks (Ross 308). Birds were randomly allotted to one of dietary treatments and three replicates of sixteen chicks per pen in a completely randomized design. The birds were assigned to receive dietary treatments as follow: a commercial basal diet which contained no feed additive was used as a Control treatment. Treatment 2 was control diet plus 15 g/kg of garlic powder. Treatment 3 was formulated by supplementing the control diet plus 0.3 g/kg organic selenium. Treatment 4 enriched with 2 g/kg of vitamin E (Alpha-tocopherol acetate). To evaluate the performance, chicks of each pen were weighed and feed intake was recorded every week. On day 42, three birds from each pen were killed and dissected to evaluate the abdominal fat. To evaluate the immune system and determine the antibody production against sheep red blood cells of micro-hem agglutination were used to titerat. The results indicated significant reduction in carcass fat and increase in body weight of broilers due to the influence of dietary supplementation of garlic powder. Selenium and vitamin E in compared with the control treatment showed a significant increase in antibody titers, against SRBC and immune system of broilers