¹Department of Animal Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, IRAN
²Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agricultural Science, University of Guilan, Rasht, IRAN
³Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, IRAN DOI : 10.9775/kvfd.2017.18433 The effect of Lactofeed probiotic and different sources of fat on performance, carcass characteristics, intestinal morphology and ghrelin gene expression of broiler chickens was studied in an experiment using a total of 240 one-day-old male chickens from commercial strain (Ross 308) in a completely randomized design via 6 treatments with 4 replicates (10 birds per replicate). The experimental diets included: (1) basal diet (control); (2) diet containing 3% animal fat from tallow (fat); (3) diet containing 3% plant oil from soybean (oil); (4) control + probiotic; (5) probiotic + (fat) and (6) probiotic + (oil). The results showed some improvement in performance in the third group (P<0.05). A significant difference in the length, width and depth of crypt was observed between the treatments 3 and 4, and the control group (P<0.05). There was a significant difference in ghrelin gene expression of the treatments 2 and 4 in comparison with the control group (P<0.05). The results generally showed that there were benefits from the separate use of probiotic and soybean oil in the diet of broiler chicken. Keywords : Broiler, Fat, Feed intake, Lactofeed, Performance