Riboflavin and effects on growth performance and woody-breast of Ross 708 broilers with or without spp. challenge.

This study was conducted to assess the effects of the dietary supplementation of riboflavin (as a bile salt hydrolase [BSH] inhibitor) and on growth performance and woody breast of male broilers challenged with spp. Intestinal bacteria, including supplemented probiotics, can produce BSH enzymes that deconjugate conjugated bile salts and reduce fat digestion. A 3 × 2 × 2 (riboflavin × × spp. challenge) factorial arrangement of treatments in randomized complete block design was used. On d 14, birds were gavaged with 20× doses of commercial cocci vaccine (Coccivac-B52, Merck Animal Health, Omaha, NE). Dietary treatment of riboflavin and did not affect body weight (BW), body weight gain (BWG), and feed conversion (FCR) d 0 to 14 and overall d 0 to 41. spp challenge reduced BWG, feed intake (FI), and increased FCR between d 14 to 28, but increased BWG and lowered FCR between d 28 to 35. There were no effects of the spp. challenge on the overall d 0 to 41 FCR and FI, but BWG was reduced. spp. challenge increased the abdominal fat pad weight and slight woody breast incidences on processed birds on d 42. Dietary inclusion of and riboflavin at tested levels did not help birds to mitigate the negative impact of spp. challenge to enhance the growth performance.