The effect of feeding various dietary lead level on the performances of broilers

Abstract

The 42 day long trial was performed on 94 Hybro broilers divided into four groups. All groups of chickens were fed with commercial feed mixtures and the lead was added as lead acetate of quantities enough to supply 0; 9.2; 92.0 or 920.0 mg Pb/kg food. After 28 days, each group was divided into two subgroups. The first subgroup was continuously fed with diets containing lead and the other subgroup with the control feed mixture without added lead. Increasing dietary lead intake level linearly decreased broiler performances, even at 100 ppm. The lower performance caused by the dietary lead was lessended by excluding the contaminated feed from the broilers diet, but only after a certain period which depended on the dietary level of lead, primarily. Early detection of lead presence in feed and elimination of contaminated mixtures from the diet can reduce negative effects on performance to an acceptable level.