Colina natural na nutrição de frangos de corte

Abstract

As a crucial component for the performance of broiler chickens, choline has several functions in the bird’s bodies, participating in lipid metabolism, cell structure, and as a methyl donor. Its most common form is synthetic, using choline chloride, which has some limitations due to its high hygroscopicity and the presence of chloride in its composition. Natural choline, found in most plants as phosphatidylcholine, not only avoids hygroscopicity issues but also does not require additional stabilization products and has higher bioavailability. For this study, 1,920 one-day-old broiler chicks of the Cobb 500 commercial strain were used, arranged in a completely randomized design with sic treatments and eight replicates each, totaling 48 experimental units with 40 animals each. The treatments consisted of four levels of natural choline inclusion (75, 150, 225, and 300 g/ton), a negative treatment (without choline addition), and a positive treatment (800 g/ton of 60% choline chloride). The natural choline source used in this study, as well as synthetic choline, showed no differences in performance during the 1–21-day period, nor interference with meat quality and carcass yield. However, natural choline presented better performance variables for live weight during the 1-35 and 1-42 day periods, indicating that natural choline levels of 75 g/ton and 150 g/ton are good alternatives to choline chloride. Therefore, for the natural choline source used, the recommendation for replacing choline chloride is levels between 75 and 150 g/ton.