Effects of Drinking Reverse-osmosis Treated Deep Sea Water on Growth Performance and Immune Response in Broiler Chickens

This study was executed to investigate the effects of drinking deep sea water treated by reverse osmosis process (RO-DSW) on growth performance, nutrient utilizability, relative weight of lymphoid organs and the concentration of serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) in broiler chickens. A total of 200 one day old broiler chickens (Ross 308) were equally and randomly distributed into 10 ground floor pens (20 chicks per pen, 5 pens per treatment) bedded with rice-husks. The broilers were offered either fresh tap water (Control) or RO-DSW for 28 days (from d 6 to d 33) as the drinking water. The same basal phase 1 diet for first 2 weeks and phase 2 diet for last 2 weeks were offered ad libitum to the birds. The RO-DSW was prepared by diluting 1:20 ratio with deionized water before offering to chickens. The diet for control birds was supplemented with 0.21 % of food-grade salt to satisfy salt need of the birds. Broiler feeding study resulted that there were no differences in amount of water consumption, mortality and FCR between RO-DSW and control chickens. However, feed intake and body weight gain were increased (p<0.05) by RO-DSW drinking. There was no (p>0.05) difference in nutrients utilizability between RO-DSW and fresh water drinking. There were no (p>0.05) differences in the immune response between the control and treatment group. The serum IgG levels were 3.01 vs 2.87 mg/ml and the relative weights of spleen, thymus and bursa of Fabricius were 0.23, 0.18 and 0.20 vs. 0.20, 0.17 and 0.14 for RO-DSW vs. control birds, respectively. The immune responses were tended to be improved by RO-DSW drinking. This study showed an improvement in weight gain and feed intake that could be induced by RO-DSW drinking, although it is difficult to explain the reasons of the improvement at this moment. This study implied that RO-DSW could be successfully used as drinking water to broiler chickens.