Abstract
This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of adding silicate mineral in feed on tibia bone characteristics and tibia, meat, as well as on faecal ash content in broilers. Four hundred and forty eight one-day-old broiler chicks were reared using a completely randomized design with seven treatments (diets containing 0, 1.5, or 3% of kaolin, bentonite, or zeolite) having four replicates of 16 birds each for 42 days. Body weight gain was significantly (P 0.05) differences in tibia length, diaphysis diameter, medullary canal diameter, relative bone weight, tibia and meat dry mater, blood phosphorus, and tibia phosphorus among dietary treatments and control. In conclusion it seems that inclusion of a higher level (3%) of silicate mineral in diets is more effective than the lower level (1.5%) in improving tibia bone characteristics and ash in broiler chickens.
Highlights
Kaolin or china clay is a mixture of different minerals
Body weight gain was significantly (P
The feed conversion ratio was significantly better (P
Summary
Kaolin or china clay is a mixture of different minerals. Its main component is kaolinite; but in addition, it contains quartz, mica, feldspar, illite, and montmorillonite. Kaolinite is made up of tiny sheets of triclinic crystals with pseudohexagonal morphology. It is formed by rock weathering and it has some cation exchange capacity (Adamis et al, 2005). The structure of kaolinite is a tetrahedral silica sheet alternating with an octahedral alumina sheet These sheets are arranged so that the tips of the silica tetrahedrons and the adjacent layers of the octahedral sheet form a common layer (Trckova et al, 2004; Adamis et al, 2005). Bentonite is an expanding lattice clay of the montmorillonite group of minerals with high ion exchange capacity that binds a wide range of cations. Clinoptilolite is the most widely used natural zeolite in animal studies due to its structural stability under high temperatures and acidic conditions (Tiwari, 2007)
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