Dietary Supplementation of Nano Zinc Oxide on Performance, Carcass, Serum and Meat Quality Parameters of Commercial Broilers

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of supplementation of zinc in the diet in the form of nano zinc oxide (nano ZnO) on the performance of broilers. A total of 240 day-old commercial broiler chicks were distributed in a completely randomized design into 6 treatments with 8 replicates of 5 chicks each. Treatments comprised of T1- basal diet (BD) without ZnO supplementation, T2- 2.5 ppm ZnO, T3- 5 ppm ZnO, T4- 10 ppm ZnO, T5- 20 ppm ZnO, and T6- 40 ppm inorganic ZnO. The results revealed that supplementation of nano ZnO at 2.5 ppm recorded significantly (P < 0.05) higher body weight gain, feed intake, and better feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to control and other treatment groups at 42 days of age. All dietary treatments failed to exert any significant (P > 0.05) effect on various carcass parameters (dressing percentage, abdominal fat, giblet yields), serum protein and cholesterol concentrations, and meat quality parameters (water holding capacity and pH) of broiler chicken at 42 days of age. Finally, it could be concluded that supplementation of nano ZnO at 2.5 ppm improved the performance of broilers.