Studying the effect of formic acid and potassium diformate on performance, immunity and gut health of broiler chickens

Abstract Our trial was conducted to study the effects of formic acid (FA) and potassium di-formate (KDF) in broiler ration on performance, carcass traits, blood biochemical, intestinal microbial load, histological picture of intestine and immune parameters of broilers. In this study 360 one-day-old broiler chicks were divided to 3 groups with 3 replicates of 40 chicks each. The trial continued for 35 days. The control group was fed only basal diet (G1). Group 2 (G2) were fed basal diet supplemented with FA (5 g/kg diet), and group 3 (G3) received basal diet supplemented with KDF (5 g/kg diet). The results showed that both FA and KDF significantly increased body weight gain (BWG), dressing percentage of broilers and significantly decreased feed conversion ratio (FCR) ( P