Effects of dietary natural clinoptilolite from Qom onperformance, carcass traits, microflora population and pH ofileum and litter microflora population in broilers

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of clinoptilolite (the best known and most abundantnatural zeolite) of Qom province on performance, carcass characteristics, ileum microbial population,ileum acidity, litter microbial population and litter moisture of broilers. This experiment was carried outusing a completely randomized design with 5 treatments, 4 replicates and 20 experimental units eachcontain 20 male chicks of Ross-308.At the first week of experiment, chickens were reared under a same condition and afterwards they weredivided into experimental units randomly. All chickens were reared on litter and received ad libitum dietsand water from 8 to 42 days of age. Experimental treatments were as follow: 1) Diet free of zeolite andbentonite (control group), 2) Diet with 1 percent of commercial zeolite (CZ), and 3-5) Diets with 0.5, 1and 1.5 percent of zeolite of Qom province (QZ) respectively.During the experimental period, feed consumption and body weight of chickens were measuredweekly, and on day 32nd, 1 sample was gathered from each pen to determine the litter moisture andlitter microbial population. At the end of the experiment, two birds from each pen were slaughtered torecord the carcass percentage and the relative weight of thigh, breast, heart, liver and small intestine.Also all contents of ileum, sent to the laboratory to determine pH and microbial population of ileum.All samples were cultured in BA and EMB.Results indicated that feed consumption of broilers did not significantly differ among allexperimental groups...