Effects Of Clostridium Butyricum On The Growth Performance, Immune And Antioxidant Function And The Intestinal Tract Chyme VFA Concentration In Cherry Valley Ducks

This experiment was conducted to study the effects of Clostridium butyricum on growth performance, immune organ index, immune indices, antioxidant indices and pH value, VFA concentration of the intestinal tract chyme in cherry valley ducks. The purpose is to substitude Clostridium butyricum for antibiotic in the feed of ducks. This experiment was divided into three parts:Experiment 1 Study the effect of Clostridium butyricum on the growth performance, immune organ index and immune indices in cherry valley ducks. Six hundred 1-day-old healthy cherry valley ducks were randomly divided into 5 groups with 6 replicates in each group and 20 ducks in each replicate. The animals were fed 5diets:The basal diet only(control, C), the basal diet plus 40 mg/kg bacitracin zinc (antibiotic group, A)or supplemented of the diet with Clostridium butyricum at doses of 2.5×108(CB1),5.0×108 (CB2)and 1.0×109(CB3) CFU·kg-1. The results showed that:compared with the control, the antibiotic group and the Clostridium butyricum groups significantly increased(P<0.05)the average daily gain during 1-21 d and tended to improve the average daily gain during 22-42 d and feed/gain ratio during 1-21 and 22-42 d. Thymus and spleen index in CB2 and bursal index in CB3 were significantly higher(P<0.05)than the control at 21 d. Spleen index was significantly higher(P<0.01)than in the control and A group and thymus index was higher (P<0.05) than A group in the CB2 at 42 d. Compared with the control, the serum IgM content was increased(P<0.01) in A group and Clostridium butyricum groups and the serum IgG content in CB2 was higher (P<0.05) at 21 d. The serum contents of LgM in A, CB1 and CB2, C3 in all Clostridium butyricum groups and A, the content of C4 in CB2 and CB3 were significantly higher(P<0.01) than in the control at 42 d respectively, and the content of IgG in CB2 was higher(P<0.05)than the control. The results suggested that diets added Clostridium butyricum of 5.0×108CFU·kg-1 (CB2) can improve growth performance, promote immune organ growth and enhance the immunity in cherry valley ducks.Experiment 2 This experiment was to study the effect of Clostridium butyricum on pH value and VFA concentration of the intestinal tract chyme in cherry valley ducks. The experiment design is the same as experiment 1. The results showed that the jejunum chyme pH value in CB3 group and cecum chyme in A group, CB2 and C3 group were significantly lower(P<0.05) than control at 21 d. Compared with the control, there were no significant difference(P>0.05) among all groups in duodenal chyme and ileum chyme. At 21d, the acetic acid content of ileum chyme in CB3 was higher(P< 0.05) than the control; the cecum chyme acetic acid content in CB2 increased by 25.41%,18.54%,23.24% than the control, A group and CB1 group, respectively, and reached a significant level(P< 0.01); The content of propionic acid and butyric acid in cecum chyme and the content of acetic acid in duodenum and jejunum chyme had no significant difference in all groups (P> 0.05), but the numerical value were higher than the control. At 42 d, the chyme pH value had no significant difference(P> 0.05) in control group and treated groups. Duodenal chyme acetic acid content in CB2 group and jejunum chyme acetic acid content in A group and CB2 group were significantly higher (P< 0.05) than the control. The ileum chyme acetic acid content and cecum chyme butyric acid content in CB2 and CB3 group were significantly higher(P< 0.01) than the control and A group; the cecum chyme acetic acid content in CB2 group increased by 14.99%, reached a significant level (P< 0.05)compared with the control.Experiment 3 The aim of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of Clostridium butyricum on the antioxidant indices of plasma and liver in cherry valley ducks. The experiment design is the same as experiment 1. The results were below:At 21d, the plasma GSH and GSH-pX concentration in CB2 group was higher(P< 0.05) and significantly higher(P< 0.01)than the control. The plasma SOD concentration in A group and clostridium butyricum groups were significantly increased(P< 0.01) than the control. There were no significant difference(P> 0.05) in MDA and T-AOC concentration among all groups, but there was a decreasing tendency with the additive of clostridium butyricum. At 42 d, the plasma GSH concentration in CB2 group was respectively increased by 27.81%(P< 0.01) and 18.30%(P< 0.05) than the control and A group; the plasma MDA concentration in CB3 group was significantly lower (P< 0.05) than the control; the plasma T-AOC concentration in CB2 group was higher than(P< 0.05) the control and CB1 group. There were no difference (P> 0.05) in the plasma GSH-pX and SOD concentration among all groups.At 21d, the SOD concentration of liver in CB2 and CB3 group was significantly higher(P<0.01) than the control and A group; Compared with the control group, the liver T-AOC and MDA concentration had no significant difference(P> 0.05), but the numerical value of T-AOC in the clostridium butyricum groups was higher than that in the control, while the numerical value of MDA in treated groups was lower than the control.