Abstract
The effects of butyric acid supplemented diets on growth performance of turkey poults were examined in a 49-day experiment using one hundred and sixty (160) (one-day old) Nicholas turkey poults. The experimental design was a Completely Randomized Design. Poults were brooded for 7 days, after which they were allotted to 4 dietary treatments with 5 replicates of 8 birds per replicate. Treatment 1(T1) was the basal diet with no supplement while treatments 2 (T2), 3 (T3), and 4(T4) were supplemented with antibiotics, 0.2% butyric acid and 0.4% butyric acid respectively. Feed was offered ad-libitum. Final weight and weight gain of poults fed control, antibiotics and 0.2% butyric acid supplemented diets were similar but significantly (p<0.05) higher than birds fed 0.4% butyric acid diet. Significant higher feed intake was observed in birds fed control and antibiotics diets while the least was recorded in birds fed 0.4% butyric acid diet. It was observed that 0.2% butyric acid appears to be a viable alternative to antibiotics growth promoter in turkey diets without any detrimental effect on the productive performances.
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