Influence of Replacing Inorganic by Organic Selenium Source in Ration on Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Male Broilers

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of replacement sodium selenite (SS, inorganic source) by Se-enriched yeast (SY, organic source) on growth performance and carcass traits in broiler chicken. Two hundred forty one-day-old male broilers were randomly assigned to 4 treatments in 4 replicates of 15 birds each. The starter diet was fed from 1-19 days of age. In the grower diet, SS was replaced by SY (0.3 mg Se/kg) (T1= 0.3 SS, T2= 0.2 SS+0.1 SY, T3= 0.1 SS+0.2 SY and T4= 0.3 SY). This diet was fed ad libitum to the birds from day 19 to 42 of age. The basal diet was also supplemented with 75 mg vitamin E/kg of diet. Replacing SS by SY in diet increased the live weight of chickens significantly (P < 0.01). Also, birds fed 3% SY (T4) diet had better (P • 0.05) feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to the others treatments. The mortality rate was lowest in T3 and T4. Weight of abdominal fat, thighs, liver and giblets were not significantly affected by treatments, except for breast weight that increased (P < 0.05) with replacement of selenium source from SS to SY in diets contain • -tocopherol. It can be concluded that when inorganic Se replaced with Se-yeast, the better results can be observed for performance and carcass characteristics, if organic selenium in combination with vitamin E were supplemented in diets.