Asian Journal of Advances in Agricultural Research

Aim: The experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of phytase on haematological indices, serum metabolites and enzyme activities of broiler chickens fed diets with or without phytase supplementation.

Study Design: The experiment employed a complete randomized design; all data generated were subjected to analysis of variance, P=0.05.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out at the Teaching and Research Farm of the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria, between February and April, 2011.

Methodology: Two hundred and forty unsexed day-old Anak 2000 strain broiler chicken were used in a 56-day feeding trial. The birds were allotted to 5 treatments with 4 replicates per treatment of 12 birds per replicate. Diet 1 was the reference diet with no phytase supplementation but with both plant and animal protein sources. Diets 2 and 3 were duplicate diets with enzyme supplementation only in diet 3. Diets 4 and 5 were also duplicate diets with enzyme supplementation only in diet 5. Diets 2 and 3 had groundnut cake as the major plant protein ingredient while diets 4 and 5 had soybean cake as the major protein ingredient. They were fed ad-libitum. Haematological parameters, serum metabolites and enzyme activities were determined.

Results: Significant (P<0.05) increase was obtained for mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC) of birds on diet 3 (30.04±2.41%) and diet 5 (29.74±2.30%), the eosinophils of birds on reference diet (4.80±1.29%) aspartate amino transferase (AST) of birds on diet 3 (103.50±1.01 mmol/L) and diet 5 (105.00±0.01 mmol/L). However, significant (P<0.05) decrease was recorded for alkaline phosphate (ALP) of birds on phytase supplementation, diet 3 (116.42±3.73 mmol/L) and diet 5 (118.80±1.51 mmol/L).

Conclusion: The parameters evaluated in this study did not indicate any changes that would suggest that phytase supplementation in broiler diets affected the health status of broiler chicken.