Effects of conditioning and sodium bentonite on performance, relative weight of different organs and blood parameters of broiler chickens in grower period

The impact of the conditioning process (steam and dry) and processed sodium bentonite (SB) in pellet diet on performance, carcass characteristics and some blood metabolites of broiler chickens in growing period was investigated. For this purpose, 810 day-old male broiler chickens, Ross 308 strain were used. A completely randomized experiment in a 3×3 factorial framework with three types of feed conditionings (without conditioning (dry), 2 minutes steam-conditioning and 4 minutes steam-conditioning) and three levels of sodium bentonite as a pellet binder (0, 0.75 and 1.5 percent) in with nine treatments and six replicates was explored. Processing form alone had a significant effect on the average daily gain and feed conversion ratio(P