• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.255-258
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• 2002

A study was conducted to investigate the correlation of cecal anaerobic bacterial counts with the cecal length in growing chicks. Half of 160 chicks of five weeks old were housed in cages and the remainings were kept with goats in free-range and allowed to have free access to goat's feed and faeces. All the experimental birds were fed ad libitum on a commercial chick formula diet during the period of 5 to 12 weeks of age. Body weight was larger in birds reared in the cage than in those reared on the field at 8 weeks of age (P<0.05), but vice versa at the end of experiment (P<0.05). The cecal length was longer in field-rearing than in cage-rearing at 6, 9, 10 and 11 weeks of age (P<0.05). The cecal length was correlated with body weight gain in both rearing groups (r=0.816 f3r cage-rearing, r=0.816 for field-rearing). The cecal anaerobic bacterial counts were significantly higher in field- rearing than in cage-rearing at 6, 9, 10 and 11 weeks of age (P<0.05). The cecal length was highly correlated with cecal anaerobic bacterial counts in cage- (r=0.9549) and field-(r=0.9866) rearing. It is concluded that the correlation of increase cecal length with increased cecal anaerobic bacterial counts ted a libelous of goat's faeces in growing chicks.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.556-562
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• 2007

A total of 126 crossbred weanling pigs (average body weight of $6.3{\pm}0.3$ kg) were used to investigate the effect of chito-oligosaccharide (COS) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, pH of gastro-intestinal tract (GI), intestinal and fecal microflora of young piglets. Pigs were allocated to three dietary treatments based on body weight and gender in a single factorial arrangement. Treatments were control (No COS), T1 (0.2% COS during starter (6-13 kg) and 0.1% COS during grower (13-30 kg) phases, and T2 (0.4% COS during starter (6-13 kg) and 0.3% COS during grower (13-30 kg) phases, respectively. Each treatment had 3 replicates and 14 pigs were raised in each pen. COS is a low molecular weight water-soluble chitosan that can be obtained from chitin of the crab shell after deacetylation with concentrated sodium hydroxide at high temperature and then further decomposition by chitosanase enzyme in the presence of ascorbic acid. For the starter and grower periods, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in average daily gain (ADG) and feed to gain ratio among treatments. However, during the overall period (6-30 kg), T2 showed better (p<0.05) feed to gain ratio than other treatments. A digestibility study was conducted at the end of grower phase which showed improvement (p<0.05) in DM and crude fat digestibility in T2 over the control. At 25 kg body weight, 6 pigs per treatment (2 per replicate) were sacrificed to determine the effect of diets on pH and microbial count at different sections of the GI tract. The pH of the cecal contents in pigs fed 0.1% COS was higher (p<0.05) than in the other treatments. Total anaerobic bacterial number increased from cecum to rectum in all treatments. The weekly total bacterial counts showed higher (p<0.05) in feces of pigs fed COS than that of untreated pigs at the $8^{th}$ week. The number of fecal E. coli in untreated pigs at $4^{th}$ wk was 7.35 log CFU/g compared to 6.71 and 6.54 log CFU/g in 0.1 and 0.3% COS-treated pigs, respectively. Similarly, at $8^{th}$ wk, fecal clostridium spp. were lower in pigs fed 0.3% COS (5.43 log CFU/g) than in untreated pigs (6.26 log CFU/g). In conclusion, these results indicated that chito-oligosaccharide could improve feed efficiency in young pigs and inhibited the growth of harmful bacteria.