Effects of Tartaric Acid Supplementation to Drinking Water on Broiler Performance and Some Blood Parameters

Abstract

Total of 360 broiler chicks (Ross 308) were randomly divided into three treatments with three replicates of 40 chicks each. (T1) as a control, without addition of tartaric acid to drinking water, (T2) was addition tartaric acid by 0.25 g per liter of water (T3) was addition tartaric acid by 0.75 g per liter of water. The experiment was lasted for 35 days. Production performance and Some blood parameters (metabolites of serum, enzyme activities), Gastrointestinal tract (GI-tract) morphology were measured. The results indicated that diets including tartaric acid had significant effect (p<0.05) on weekly live body weight, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio but no significant difference was found between treatments in feed intake during the experimental weeks. Also, tartaric acid had significant effect on carcass yield and relative heart weight but had no significant effect on relative weights of liver and abdominal fat. The effect of tartaric acid supplemention was significant on GI-tract morphology, cholesterol concentration, serum alkaline phosphatase, urea level, triglycerides and total protein concentrations of blood serum.