Effects Methionine-Hydroxy-Analogue Chelate and Cu on Broiler

OBJETIVE

High doses of copper (Cu) are extensively used as a growth promoter in poultry production, with Cu sulfate as the traditional source.

However, Cu Methionine-Hydroxy-Analogue Chelate is an alternative due to its higher bioavailability.

The objective of this study was to evaluate sources of Cu (Cu Methionine-Hydroxy-Analogue Chelate and Cu Sulfate) on performance and incidence on footpad lesions (FPL) in broilers.

MATERIALS & METHODS

Animals:

A total of 570 Cobb day-old male chicks were used in this study and randomly distributed into 3 treatments with 10 replicates per treatment of 19 birds per pen.

Diets:

The diets were formulated to meet nutritional requirements, with Cu sources added to the diet to replace inert substances.

Treatment:

The treatment groups were as follows: T1. 10 ppm Cu sulfate (Cu-Sulf10); T2. 125 ppm Cu sulfate (Cu-Sulf125) and T3. 30 ppm Cu Methionine-Hydroxy-Analogue Chelate (Cu-HMTBa30).
New litter was used to avoid interference in previous trials and a water spray program was adopted to increase litter moisture and promote footpad lesions.
At 35 days, feed intake, body weight (BW) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were evaluated.
Feet from 3 birds/pen were frozen on the slaughter day and evaluated by the same person for the incidence of FPL according to 1 to 5 score scale.
Data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA-GLM) and means were compared by the Tukey test at 5%.

RESULTS

The results showed that from 1 to 35 days, there were no statistical differences (P>0.05) in feed intake and feed conversation across treatments.

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