Mohammad Saeid Ezzati, Mohammad Hassan Bozorgmehrifard, Peyman Bijanzad, Saeed Rasoulinezhad, Hamed Moomivand, Saman Faramarzi, Armin Ghaedi, Hojjat Ghabel and Ehsan Stabraghi
Zinc is a nutritionally essential trace element that acts in most metabolic pathways. Nowadays the use of specific dietary supplements to boost the intrinsic potential of poultry to perform better immunologically is so important. The aim of the present study was to investigate the zinc additive different levels effect on immune response and performance of broilers. In this study, 200 Ross 308 broilers divided in 5 groups. In group1, 2, 3 and 4: 50, 75, 100 and 125 ppm Zinc, respectively, were used for two weeks. In group5: was mentioned as a control group. This study was performed in 42 days period and growth parameters include body weight gain, feed intake and FCR were calculated in all groups and antibody titers against Newcastle disease were evaluated by HI and ELISA methods. Dietary Zn significantly affected daily body weight gain and daily feed intake (p<0.01) but not the feed conversion ratio, and the best results were obtained in 100 ppm groups. Dietary Zn significantly affected antibody titers against Newcastle disease (p<0.01), and the highest antibody titer in ELISA and HI methods was in 100 ppm groups. Our results indicated that 100 ppm Zn supplementation could improve performance of broilers also it has immunestimulatory effects and increase humoral immunity response to vaccination.
