Effect of different levels of dicalcium phosphate in thediet on growth performance, bone characteristics andmicrobial flora in broiler chickens

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of dicalsium phosphate on growthperformance, bony characteristics and intestinal microbial flora in broiler chickens. Dicalsium phosphate wasadded in 0, 0.5, 1, and 2 % to basal diet. A total of 200 Ross- 308 broiler chicks in 4 treatments and 5 replicates(with 10 birds in each replicate) in completely randomized design, reared for 42 days. The results showed thatall levels of dicalsium phosphate in diet of broiler chickens had a signifcant difference on daily weight gain andfnal weight compared to control group signifcantly (P>0.05). There was no signifcant difference between testand control groups as feed intake, but FCR was lower in test group signifcantly (P<0.05). In characteristics ofbone, the weight of the bones in test groups was signifcantly increased compared with the control group (P<0.05).But the other characteristics (bone length, width bone, bone strength, bone ash) were not signifcant. Also, the testgroup had lower intestinal microbial flora signifcantly compared to controls group (P<0.05). Rate of intestinalmicrobial flora in treatments with 0.5 % dicalsium phosphate was less than the others. It can be concluded that thesupplementation of diet with dicalsium phosphate has positive effects on broilers performance.