Effect of dietary supplementation of benzoic acid on performance and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of different levels of benzoic acid on performance and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens. To this purpose 120 one-day-old Ross 308 chickens were examined with a completely randomized design with 4 treatments, 3 replications and 10 sub sampling that were reared for 42 days. Dietary treatments included of the 0, 0.25, 0.5 and 1 percent levels of benzoic acid. Properties were measured included weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion rate. Dietary supplementation of benzoic acid significantly decreased feed intake of chickens (P<0.05) and the highest feed intake observed in control group. There was no significant difference between BA0.25 and BA0.5 groups in terms of body weight gain (P>0.05). Supplementing 1% benzoic acid in the diet resulted in significant decrease in body weight gain (P<0.05). Use of 0.25 and 0.5percent benzoic acid in the broilers diet in contest of control group significantly decrease FCR (P<0.05). Also inclusion of benzoic acid in the diet resulted in significant decrease breast to carcass weight ratio in 0.5percent treatment (P<0.05) but thigh to carcass weight ratio significantly increased in the treatment of 0.5 percent of benzoic acid than control group. Regarding to present results, suggested that use of 0.5 percent dietary supplementation of benzoic acid in broiler chickens is possible without negative effects on performance and carcass characteristics.