EFFECTS OF LEVOCARNITINE SUPPLEMENTATION ON PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER

Abstract

One hundred Cobb 500™ broiler chicks were used in a 28-day trial at Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University poultry farm to evaluate the functional efficiency of levocarnitine in drinking water on performance and carcass parameters of broiler chickens. Birds were divided into five dietary treatment groups designated as T0, T1, T2, T3 and T4 and each treatment was further divided into two replicates having 10 birds per replicate. Levocarnitine was supplemented in drinking water at the rate of 0 mg/l, 25 mg/l, 50 mg/l, 75 mg/l and 100 mg/l respectively. All birds had free access to ad libitum feed and water. Results indicated that, levocarnitine supplementation in drinking water significantly increased body weight (p<0.001) over the whole rearing period. Highest average live weight (1736.0 g/bird) was recorded in the T4 group and the lowest (1650.2 g/bird) in the T0 group. A highly significant level of variations (p<0.001) in weight gain was found from 17.0 to 17.2 g/bird/day at 1st week and 54.9 to 58.2 g/bird/day at 2nd week, whereas variations (p<0.01) were also found from 70.9 to 78.1 g/bird/day at 3rd week as the level of levocarnitine supplementation increased from 0 mg/l to 100 mg/l. The feed intake decreased significantly (p<0.01) in the last week in relation with the lower to higher doses of levocarnitine. At the age of 4th week, the lowest average feed intake (137.7 g/bird/day) was recorded in the T4 group and the highest (148.4 g/bird/day) in T0 group. The feed efficiency was significantly improved (P<0.001) over the whole experimental period. The best feed conversion ratio (FCR) (1.4) was recorded in the highest level of levocarnitine supplemented group (100 mg/l) and the worst FCR (1.5) in the control group (0 mg/l). Supplementation of levocarnitine in drinking water significantly increased the dressing percentage (p<0.05), thigh weight (p<0.05), breast weight (p<0.01), spleen weight (p<0.05), thymus weight (p<0.01) and decreased (p˂0.01) the abdominal fat weight.