Effect of dietary arginine supplementation after hatching on the intestinal morphometry and integrity of chicks housed under health challenge conditions

ABSTRACT

Background: Arginine (Arg) is an essential amino acids for birds, especially in the starter phase. The degradation of Argproduces ornithine, a precursor of polyamines that are considered nutritionally important local factors for growth and thedevelopment of small intestinal of the newly hatched chick. The first week is a critical time intestine development andthe aggression to the mucosa may compromise the final productive result. This study aimed to evaluate the productiveperformance, intestinal morphometry and integrity of broilers housed under health challenge conditions and supplementedwith L-Arginine in the pre-starter diet.Materials, Methods & Results: Three-hundred-twenty male Cobb chicks were randomly assigned according to a completelyrandomized design with 4 treatments and 5 replications of 16 birds each. Treatments consisted of A control (basal diet);B diet with 1% L-Arginine; C health challenge (reused poultry manure litter) + basal diet; D health challenge (reusedpoultry manure litter) + diet with 1% L-Arginine. The reused poultry manure litter was obtained from a commercial poultryfarm with birds in the final growth phase and without any previous treatment. In order to achieve the supplemented dietsit was added 1% Arg replacing the inert. At the ages of seven days, all the birds and the feed remains were weighed inorder to determine body weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio. The small intestine of twenty birds per treatment was weighed and measured; samples of duodenum, jejunum and ileum were taken for injury assessment scores, formorphometric study and counting of goblet cells in segments of the duodenum...