The Effects of Dietary Oil Sources on Performance, Serum Corticosterone Level, Antibody Titers and IFN-γ Gene Expression in Broiler Chickens

Abstract

The present study was performed to evaluate the effects of addition of fish oil, soybean oil and olive oil to diet on performance and immune response in broiler chickens. In a completely randomized design, 320 broiler chickens (Ross 308, 7 days old) were allocated to four dietary treatments (control and three vegetable oils), four replicates with 20 chicks per each. The results showed that body weight gain of chicks fed soybean oil was higher and feed conversion ratio was better than the other treatments in the total period (P 0.05). Chicks fed fish oil had higher relative weights of bursa of Fabricius and there were no significant differences in relative weights of spleen among treatments. It was concluded that the source of oils in the diet may be affect the performance and immune response, the addition of fish oil and soybean oil to the diet resulted in significant improvement of performance and immune response in broiler chickens, respectively.