Effects Of Dietary Copper Source And Copper Level On Performance, Shank Pigmentation And Tissues' Nutrients Deposition In Broiler

High dose of Cu sulfate is generally added into the commercial feed as growth promotion element to decrease the cost of animal production, but it has any instable effects while it might enhance the nutrients oxidation. TBCC has the different physico-chemical property from copper sulfate and the less prooxidation, and it might have more advantages as dietary copper source. The present experiment was conducted to compare the effects of dietary triadic Cu chloride (TBCC) and Cu sulfate on performance, shank pigmentation and tissue copper deposition in broilers. A 2×5 factorial (two copper sources: copper sulfate or TBCC; five added copper levels as 0, 50,150, 250, or 350 mg/kg) completely randomized design was used in this study. Two treatments fed by the basic corn-soybean diet were put together to carry out. 1,890, 1-d-old, Cobb48 commercial male chicks were randomly allotted by weight into 63 floor pens of 30 birds each, and fed to 40-d-old. Broilers' performance, carcass characteristics and shank pigmentation were detected, and the contents of crude fat, copper, VE and MDA in tissues and pigmentation in plasma of birds were determined too. Results indicated that: 1) Added the high level copper into the diet of 0-21d could improve the performance of boiler. The suitable copper levels were 150～176mg/kg from copper sulfate or 50～118 mg/kg from TBCC respectively. 2) Added the high level of copper sulfate or TBCC into the diet of 0-21d decreased the ADG and FCR of grower. 3) The pigmentation of broiler's shank was enhanced by supplementation of high level copper. The copper levels of 150mg/kg as copper sulfate or 250 mg/kg as TBCC were the excellent dosages respectively to promote pigmentation. 4) Following with the dietary copper levels increasing, the V_E and malondialdehyde dosage in liver decreased, and the heart V_E increased. 5) The crude fat of liver of birds given 250mg/kg copper as TBCC or copper sulfate was incremented, and the crude fat of breast muscles was improved at the level of 350 mg/kg copper from TBCC. 6) The copper contents in liver or muscles were increased by dietary copper with high level significantly. When dietary copper level was more than 250mg/kg, copper accumulated in liver as TBCC would be less than same copper level as copper sulfate in chick diet. It demonstrated that TBCC was a safe dietary copper source that could be added into starter diet to improve performance effectively.