Effects of Herbal Vitamin D3 and Phytase Supplementation to Broiler Feed on Performance, Bone Development and Serum Parameters of Broilers

A trial was conducted to assess the effects of phytase supplementation and substitute Vitamin D3 resource with Panbonis - a herbal vitamin D3 source- (PAN) on performance, some carcass characteristics, tibia and serum parameters of broiler chickens. For this purpose, 11200 one-day-old, mixed sex (5600 male, 5600 female) Ross-308 chicks were administered 7 different diets based on corn, soybean and wheat throughout the 41-day trial. Dietary treatments; control group as T1 (5000 IU vitamin D3), T2 (T1 + 500 FTU g-1 phytase), T3 (3000 IU vitamin D3 + 500 FTU g-1 phytase + 100 mg kg-1 PAN) and T4 (3000 IU vitamin D3 + 500 FTU g-1 phytase + 200 mg kg-1PAN) were prepared to contain recommended levels of Ca-P however T5, T6 and T7 were formulated from T2, T3 and T4, respectively, by reducing 18% of Ca and P concentrations.When overall results considered, there was no significant difference among treatments in terms of final live weight, mortality, weight gain, European Production Efficiency Factor (EPEF) and carcass parameters and mortality (P>0.05). While birds consuming diets containing phytase exhibited better FCR than control group without phytase (P<0.05), no additional improvement was obtained with PAN supplementation compared to other treatments without control group. Additionally partial replacement of PAN for synthetic form had no significant effect on tibia parameters and serum Ca, P levels even though serum Mg (in chicks fed sufficient Ca-P) and calcitriol were increased.These results indicate that PAN could replace some part of synthetic vitamin D3 without any adverse effect in broiler chickens. However, substitution rate of PAN in Ca and P deficient diets should be carefully studied more due to possible adverse effects on feed intake (12-41d) and weight gain (12-41d) as observed in the present study.