Effect of different levels of industrial potassium chloride and ammonium chloride in diets on some blood and immunological parameters of broilers under heat stress conditions

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of industrial potassium chloride (NH4Cl) and ammonium chloride (KCl) inclusion in grower male broiler chicken diets (22 to 42 d) under heat stress of summer (23 to 41°C) in Qom province. Experiment was performed as completely randomized design with 10 treatments and 4 replicates of 8 chickens in each. Chickens were raised in controlled condition during 21 days and transferred to experimental cages. Treatments were consisted of control without supplementation or the levels of 0.6 (KCl0.6), 0.7 (KCl0.7), 0.8 (KCl0.8) and 0.9 (KCl0.9) from industrial KCl and 0.3 (NH4Cl0.3), 0.4 (N 4Cl0.4), 0.5 (NH4Cl0.5), 0.6 (NH4Cl0.6) and 0.7 (NH4Cl0.7) from industrial NH4Cl. The results showed that weight gain of treatments KCl0.9 (1330.8 g) and NH4Cl0.7 (1306.6 g) was greater than control (1187 g) (P < 0.05). Feed conversion ratio of treatment NH4Cl0.6 (1.57) was lower than control (1.78) (P < 0.05). Hemoglobin of control (10.19 g/dl) was lower than treatments KCl0.8 (11.46 g/dl), KCl0.9 (11.83 g/dl) and NH4Cl0.7 (11.36 g/dl) (P < 0.05). The greatest hematocrit percentage was observed in treatments KCl0.6 (34.19), KCl0.8 (34.95) and KCl0.9 (34.19) (P < 0.05). Antibody titer against Newcastle disease in KCl0.9 (2.35) was greater than control (1.37) (P < 0.05). The results showed that the addition of electrolytes in diets resulted in reduce negative effects of heat stress and amounts of 0.8 and 0.9 % KCl lead to best results.