Effect of Protected Sodium Butyrate in Pullet Performance

In the last IPPE 2018 in Atlanta, Norel presented a trial about the effect of GUSTOR N’RGY in a pullet rearing trial under field conditions. A total of 110,027 one-day-old pullets (Lohmann lsl-lite) were allotted in four poultry yards and randomly distributed in two treatments: standard diet with antibiotic growth promotors (AGPs: Bacitracin and Colistin) (Control), and the Control diet with GUSTOR N’RGY at 1 kg/t of feed (N’RGY). Pullets were fed with starter and grower diets based in corn-soybean meal and nutrient levels according to Lohmann manual recommendations. All data were analyzed by GLM procedure (SAS 9). Body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), flock uniformity (FU) and mortality were recorded at the end of the trial (15 weeks). There were no differences between treatments for BWG, FI and FCR at seven weeks. However, at 15 weeks N’RGY group tended to increase BWG (1060 vs 1080 g; P=0.106) by 20 g. Mortality was not affected (P=0.406) by butyrate inclusion in the diet. Nevertheless, FU was higher in N’RGY treatment (83.5% vs 90%; P<0.05). We can conclude that the inclusion of GUSTOR N’RGY at the doses used in this test allowed better FU and tended to improve growth performance, even compared with the treatment with AGPs.