Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Lauric Acid on Blood Biochemical Constituents, Nutrient Retention and Gut Microflora Count in Commercial Broilers

Background: Ban on utilization of antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) in poultry diets has driven the implementation of alternative strategies to maintain gut health, optimal digestibility and performance in broiler production. Lauric acid (LA) is a medium chain fatty acids and could be used as a potential alternative to AGP in broiler diets. Hence, an experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation of LA at graded levels on nutrient retention, blood biochemical constituents and gut microflora count. Methods: Three hundred, day old commercial broiler chicks were randomly allotted to 6 dietary treatments with 10 replicates of 5 chicks in each. Corn-soybean meal based basal diet (BD) was formulated for pre-starter (1-2weeks), starter (3-4 weeks) and finisher (5-6 weeks) phases without AGP (negative control). Positive control diet was the BD having 0.035% chlortetracycline as AGP. The remaining 4 experimental diets were formulated by supplementing LA to BD at rate of 0.05% (LA-50), 0.075% (LA-75), 0.1% (LA-100) and 0.2% (LA-200), respectively. Blood was collected from 1 bird per replicate on 35thd to estimate blood biochemical constituents. To assess the nutrient retention, metabolic trial of 3 d duration was conducted on one randomly selected bird per replicate after 42 d. On same day, 1 bird from each replicate was sacrificed for enumeration of total bacteria and Escherichia coli in gut. Result: The utilization of dry matter was higher (P less than 0.05) in broilers fed on graded levels of LA than BD fed chicks and was comparable to that of AGP fed birds. Broilers supplemented with LA-200 and LA-75 diet had higher (P less than 0.01) crude protein retention than those fed BD. Significantly (P less than 0.05) higher ether extract retention was observed in LA-200 fed birds compared to those on BD, AGP, LA-50, LA-75 and LA-100. Replacement of AGP with LA (0.05 to 0.2%) in diets decreased (P less than 0.05) total bacterial and E.coli count in gut. Serum glucose, cholesterol, albumin, globulin and its ratio were not affected while serum total protein was higher (P less than 0.05) in LA-75 and LA-200 fed birds compared to BD birds. Based on the results it could be concluded that, lauric acid supplementation at 0.05% in diets improved nutrient retention and gut health and could be used as alternative to antibiotic growth promoter.