Effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles on broilers' performance and health status.

Abstract

The current study investigated the effects of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZONPs) and oxytetracycline (OTC) supplementation on broilers' behavior, performance, carcass quality, biochemical parameters, and intestinal microbial populations and birds' response to Newcastle disease (ND) vaccine. A total of 336 seven-day-old IR broiler chicks were randomly allotted to six dietary treatments containing 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40ppm ZONPs or 50ppm OTC. Each diet was fed to 7 replicates (8 birds/pen). The results clarified that 10ppm ZONPs significantly improved the body weight gain and feed conversion in comparison to the control. No changes in behavior were recorded. The 10ppm and 30ppm ZONPs and OTC significantly reduced the gizzard weight in comparison to the control. While, 10ppm ZONPs significantly increased the spleen weight, and all ZONPs doses increased bursa weight in comparison to the control and OTC groups. 20ppm ZONPs increased the eviscerated yield and edible yield in comparison to the control and OTC groups. 40ppm ZONPs increased pH, reduced meat color and overall acceptability in comparison to the control. In addition, results revealed that the 20ppm ZONPs increased Calcium (Ca), High density low cholesterol (HDL-C), reduced urea (UA) and triglyceride (TG). Also, 40ppm ZONPs and OTC increased creatinine (Cr) and reduced ND-HI titer in comparison to the control. For microbial population, OTC group was significantly lower than ZONPs groups in the total anaerobic, aerobic and lactobacilli count. In conclusion, the dietary inclusion of ZONPs can be applied as antibiotic growth promoter substitutions in broilers' diet. However, further investigations are still needed.