Effect of High Dose of Bile Acids Supplementation in Broiler Feed on Growth Performance, Clinical Blood Metabolites, and Organ Development

Abstract

SUMMARY Bile acids are intended for use in animal feed as a novel feed additive to enhance fat absorption. As far as we know, few studies in avian species have been reported, and a safety study of bile acids has not been done. Therefore, a subchronic broiler chicken safety study was conducted to evaluate whether or not high-dose bile acids could affect the health of broiler chickens. A total of 324 1-day-old Arbor Acres broiler chickens were randomly assigned to 3 treatments with 6 replicates of 18 broiler chickens each. Broiler chickens were fed a corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with 0, 80 (the recommended available dose, RAD), and 400 mg/kg (5-fold of RAD) of bile acids for 42 d, respectively. Throughout the study, clinical observation and growth performance were measured. At the end of the study, broiler chickens were subjected to a full postmortem examination: blood samples were collected for clinical pathology, selected organs were weighed, and specified tissues were taken for subsequent histopathological examination. No treatment-related changes considered to be of toxicological significance were observed. Therefore, a nominal bile acids inclusion of 400 mg/kg was considered to be the no-observed adverse-effect level.