| Popis: |
Chitosan is a bioactive polymer obtained from marine crustaceans and is used as an immunomodulatory. To our knowledge, limited research has been published on the effect of dietary chitosan on the immune system of poultry. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate whether dietary chitosan with high degree of deacetylation (HDAC; minimum 90%) would affect on yolk and blood immune status of laying hens. Thirty four weeks old layers were divided into 5 dietary groups of similar mean body weight and mean egg weight, comprising 14 birds each. The birds were fed standard layer diets containing 0, 200, 400, 800 and 1600 ppm HDAC for 8 weeks period. The birds were housed in individual cages in a complete randomized design. The data were analysed using the General Linear Models (GLM) and linear, quadratic and cubic effects were determined by orthogonal polynomial contrasts of SAS (2000).A 16:8 hours light:dark photoperiod was employed. Feed and water were given ad libitum. The results showed that HDAC supplementation decreased linearly (P |
