Effect of Chitosan and Mannan on Productive Performance, Blood Parameters, Cecal Microbiota and Intestinal Morphology of Broiler Chicks

Abstract

The study evaluated the effects of dietary chitosan (CS) and man-nan-oligosaccharide (MOS) on performance traits, blood parameters, cecal microbiology, and intestinal histomorphology. The study employed 270 Ross chicks, randomly assigned to six treatments with three replicates per treatment, each replicate containing 15 chicks. The first treatment received a control diet (without additives), while the other five treatments received four graded levels of CS supplements (0.05%, 0.1%, 0.15%, and 0.2%), and the fifth treatment received MOS supplements (0.1%). At 38 days of age, graded dietary levels of CS and MOS had no effect on body weight, body weight gain, or feed intake. However, CS at 0.05% and MOS at 0.1% slightly improved the feed conversion ratio at 38 days. Additionally, CS at 0.05%, CS at 0.2%, and MOS at 0.1% improved blood biochemical parameters at 38 days. In addition, the total bacterial count was significantly lower in the CS- and MOS-fed treatments compared with the control diet. Dietary CS at 0.15% also improved villus height (VH), crypt depth (CD), and villus height-to-crypt depth ratio (VH/CD) in both the jejunum and ileum.