THE EFFECT OF FULVIC ACID FRACTION SUPPLEMENTATION ON BROILER CHICKENS PERFORMANCE

Abstract

An experiment had been carried out to study the effect of supplementation of fulvic
acid via drinking water as natural feed additive on the performance of broiler chickens. Three hundred and twenty day old broilers were divided into 4 treatment groups: (I) control without fulvic acid; (II), (III) and (IV) with 100, 200 and 300 ppm fulvic acid fraction in the drinking water, respectively. Each group consisted of 4 replicates with 20 birds / replicate. The birds were raised in litter system; feed and water were given ad libitum for 5 weeks. During the 5 weeks trial, the treatment has no effect on mortality. Body weight gain of the birds receiving fiilvic acid (1891 i 27 gram / head) were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than control ((1841 i 45 gram / head). There were no significant differences (P > 0.05) between the birds receiving
different level fulvic acid, 1897 i 34; 1887 i 23 and 1888 i 31 gram/head for treatment II, III and IV respectively. The FCR value was also significantly (P < 0.05) affected by the treatments. FCR of the control diet (1.65 i 0.04) was poorer than the one receiving fulvic acid (1.60 i 0,02), while level of fulvic acids had no significant effect, the values were 1.59, 1.61 and 1.61 for treatment II, III and IV, respectively. The treatments had no significant (P > 0.05) effect on carcass yield, 66.28 i 1.78; 67.06 i 3.11; 67.63 i 2.06 and 67.68 i 2.21 for treatments 1, II, III and IV, respectively. It was concluded that fulvic acid fraction has a potency as natural feed supplement, which could improve growth and feed efficiency without affecting carcass yield.