Effect of various forms of dietary Chlorella supplementation on growth performance, immune characteristics, and intestinal microflora population of broiler chickens

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of Chlorella (Chlorella vulgaris) to replace antibiotics in the diets of broiler chickens. A total of 600 1-d-old male broiler chicks were randomly assigned into 5 treatments with 4 replicate pens per treatment (30 birds/replicate pen) for 4 wk. A corn-soybean meal basal diet (control) was formulated, and 0.1% virginiamycin as antibiotic growth promoters (AGP), 1.0% dried Chlorella powder (DCP), 1.0% Chlorella growth factor (CGF), and 1.0% fresh liquid Chlorella (FLC) were added to the basal diet to form 5 dietary treatments. No significant differences were found among the treatments for feed intake or feed conversion of broiler chickens during the whole experimental period, but the BW gain was…