Effect of using loperamide hydrochloride on some production traits in broiler chickens

الملخص EN

This experiment was conducted at a Al-Mussaib technical institute poultry farm from 25/3/2014 to 5/5/2014 to evaluate the effect of using loperamide hydrochloride on body weight, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and feed intake on Ross 308 broiler chickens.

Fifty four chicks at age 14 days were divided into two equal (control and treatment) groups with three replicates for each group.

Feed and water were ad libitum.

At 14 days of age the control group treated with water without any addition while 1mg loperamide hydrochloride was added to drinking water of the treatment group.

Primary chicks body weight, weekly and final; body weight, weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio were estimated, as well as final blood glucose and packed cell volume were estimated at the end of experiment.

The results indicated that no significant differences were found in weekly and final body weights, packed cell volume and blood glucose, but there were significant (P≤0.01) differences in weekly and final feed intake and feed conversion ratio between control and treatment group.

That’s might be due to loperamide hydrochloride for reducing intestinal motility and increase digestion and absorption time of nutrients in the feed.

This experiment was indicated that loperamide hydrochloride can be used in poultry production to increase nutrients absorption efficiency in the feed and decrease wastes in ration.