Digestibility of dietary nutrients and morphohistological changes in the pancreas and duodenum of broiler chickens against the background of replacement of feed antibiotics with a complex phytobiotic drug

Abstract

The study is aimed at studying the indices of the digestibility of nutrients in broiler chickens' diet and morphohistological changes in the duodenum and pancreas with additional administration and when replacing the feed antibiotic in the feed for a complex preparation, including phytoextracts, essential oils and protected organic acids. The study is based on the methods of industrial testing of the effectiveness of feed and commercial products in accordance with the methods of the Federal Research Center "VNITIP" RAS (2013). For calculations, the method of variation statistics is used with the use of the PC “Microsoft Excel”. The assessment of the statistical significance of differences between groups was carried out using the Student's t-test. Results. It was found that the tested feed additive, which includes essential oils, protected organic acids, and hot pepper extract, promoted an increase in the digestion of fiber and fat by broiler chickens. The morphohistological study has shown that the processes of food digestion during the active work of the pancreas create conditions for the normal life of the bird without the manifestation of pathological processes. Scientific novelty of the work. Recently, the use of antibiotic drugs has been widely discussed in scientific circles and in the general press, shaping public opinion. There has been a significant increase in the number of publications dealing with the use of alternative antibiotics additives that promote the growth of poultry, enhance the immune response. Under these conditions, for the first time in a comparative study, the reserves of increasing the productive qualities of poultry were substantiated due to the use in the composition of compound feed in addition and instead of feed antibiotics additives, including phytoextracts, essential oils and protected organic acids. Namely, new data were obtained on the influence of the studied feed factor on the digestibility and use of nutrients of feed, the morphohistological state of the duodenum and pancreas.