Interference of Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharide on performance and biological parameters of broiler chickens

This study was conducted to determine the interference of Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharide (sLPS) on the performance, biological parameters, and histological evaluations of 198 one-day-old male broiler chickens divided into three treatments according to sLPS dose (0, 250, or 500 µg/application/bird) that was applied to the birds every other day, from 15 to 27 days of age. At the end of the experiment (28 days), significant effects were observed on body weight (R= -0.17 and P=0.05), total cholesterol serum levels(R=0.43 and p 0.01), phosphorus (R=0.53 and P 0.01), uric acid (R= -0.38 and P 0.01), C-reactive protein (R=0.68 and p 0.01), serum activity of aspartate aminotransferase (R=0.39 and p 0.01) and alkaline phosphatase (R= -0.39 and p 0.01). According to these results, sLPS mainly affect broiler biological parameters, but also their live performance.(AU)

Performance of turkey poults fed different doses of aflatoxins in the diet.

This work was conduced to determine the performance parameters of initial-phase turkey poults fed 7 different doses of aflatoxins in the diet. Three hundred thirty-six 1-d-old male turkey poults were used in this research. Turkeys were divided into 7 treatments according to aflatoxin doses (T1 = control; T2 = 20 ppb aflatoxins; T3 = 50 ppb; T4 = 100 ppb; T5 = 200 ppb; T6 = 500 ppb; T7 = 1,000 ppb). Birds were killed in 2 periods: half of them after 21 d of experiment and the remaining birds after 42 d of experiment. In both periods, the evaluated parameters were as follows: feed consumption, BW, relative weights of organs (liver, gizzard, heart, and bursa of Fabricius) and meat (breast and thighs), and clinical biochemistry parameters (total plasmatic proteins, albumin, uric acid, cholesterol, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and alkaline phosphatase). At 21 d of experiment, both feed consumption and BW were significantly affected by the aflatoxins present in the diet. Nevertheless, gizzard relative weight, total plasmatic proteins, and cholesterol levels were also affected. At the 42-d evaluation, besides feed consumption and BW, gizzard and liver relative weights and cholesterol levels were also affected by the presence of aflatoxins in the diet. Turkey poults are very sensitive to aflatoxin poisoning, because they are at least 3 to 6 times more sensitive to these contaminants than broilers.