Hematological blood parameters when using spirulina in broiler chicken diets

Antibiotics play an important role in prevention and treatment of infectious diseases in farm animals and poultry, and the use of feed antibiotics in agriculture also improves fattening results and increases feed conversion per unit of output. However, excessive use leads to antimicrobial resistance. Consequently, many countries have banned the use of feed antibiotics, increasing the need to find alternative feed additives that can improve the performance of animals and poultry. Such feed additives with biological activity in poultry include plant-based additives – phytobiotics, which have proven successful in feeding monogastric animals. This article presents the results of clinical and biochemical studies of broiler chicken blood. For this purpose, studies were conducted to determine the effect of spirulina powder on hematological parameters of broiler chickens’ blood. Four groups of birds were formed on the principle of pairs-analogues. The control group received main commercial diet, the experimental groups were administered 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% of spirulina powder from the nutritional value of diet. As a result of the studies, it was found that the inclusion of spirulina powder does not have a negative effect on the bird’s body, on the contrary, it leads to an increase in the concentration of hemoglobin by 2.68-7.76%, erythrocytes – 1.22-4.57% and total protein – by 3.8-8.6%, however, the difference between the control and experimental groups was not reliable. Also, the inclusion of spirulina powder led to an increase in the amount of albumin, as well as a decrease in the level of urea in the blood. Thus, the difference between control and experimental indicators of urea content was 6.4; 8.1 and 13.4%, for albumin – 6.5, 11.7 and 18.0%, respectively.