Butyric and valeric glycerides blend prevents adverse impacts of coccidiosis challenge in broiler chickens.

Abstract

Organic acids are well known for their antibacterial and antifungal effects, but their potential efficacy against coccidian parasites remains underexplored. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of a butyric and valeric glyceride blend (BVg) in mitigating the adverse impacts of coccidiosis in broiler chickens. A total of 960 mixed-sex d-old Cobb 500 chicks were randomly allocated to five treatments with 12 replicates, each containing 16 birds. The five treatments were: non-challenged control (NC); coccidiosis challenged control (CC); CC+ BVg (BV; 500, 500, and 250 g/ton in the starter, grower and finisher phases, respectively); CC + anticoccidial salinomycin, 60 g/t (AntS); and CC + salinomycin + BVg (ABV). Coccidiosis challenge was induced on d9 via oral gavage with Eimeria spp. Performance parameters were determined on days 8, 19, 28 and 35. Lesion scoring and ileal digesta sampling was performed on d16 and excreta samples were collected on d20 for oocyst enumeration. One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's test to separate means was applied to normally distributed data, while the Kruskal-Wallis test was used for data that did not meet the normality assumption. The results showed that BVg supplementation significantly improved feed conversion ratio (FCR) during starter (d0-8), grower (d8-19) and overall study (d0-35) periods compared to the CC group (P < 0.05). BVg supplementation also numerically improved flock uniformity and significantly reduced oocyst counts (P < 0.05) and duodenal lesions (P < 0.05) compared to the CC group. Additionally, BVg inclusion shifted hock burn lesions and tibia length values from the CC group towards the NC and ABV groups, respectively. These findings suggest that BVg may offer a promising nutritional strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of coccidiosis, reducing oocyst loads and gut lesions, while supporting the feed efficiency and hock burn lesions of broiler chickens.