Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Department of Nutrition

To study the effects of exogenous dietary nucleotides supplementation on broiler performance, gut health parameters, and immunity. Two separate experiments were performed. The first experiment, 270 one-day-old mixed broiler chicks (Cobb 500) randomly divided into 6 treatment groups with 3 replicates of 15 chicks each. Treatment 1 (CX), a negative control group fed corn-soybean basal diet without added nucleotides. Treatment 2 (CN 0.05) and treatment 3 (CN 0.1), consisted of chicks fed a basal diet with the addition of nucleotides on top at two levels (0.05 and 0.1 %) respectively. Treatment 4 (PX), treatment 5 (PN 0.05), and treatment 6 (PN 0.1) consisted of chicks that were challenged with C.perfringes inoculum (~ 4{u00D7}108 CFU/ml) on d 14, 15, 16 and 17of the experiment and fed diets similar to treatments 1, 2, and 3 respectively. The trial continued for 35 days. The second experiment, a total of 315 one-day-old mixed broiler chicks (Cobb 500) were randomly assigned to 6 treatment groups with 3 replicates (the number of chick/ replicate differ according the required stocking density). A 2{u00D7}3 factorial design with two stocking densities (0.073 m2/ 2.2 kg bird and 0.05 m2/ 2.2 kg bird) and 3 levels of dietary NP (0, 0.05, 0.1 %) was used in this trial. The trial continued for 35 days. Obtained results showed that dietary nucleotide supplementation markedly ameliorates the negative effects of stressful condition (such as C. perfringens infection or high stocking density) by improving the intestinal barrier functions, intestinal histomorphology, digestive enzymes production, and immune status of bird, which directly reflected on growth performance of affected birds

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