Abstract

A total of 300 one-day old Ross 308 broiler chicks were used i to examine the effect of supplementing of different levels of arginine to broiler diets on blood biochemistry. The chicks were allocated on 4 treatment groups each of five replicates and each replicate consisted of 15 chicks. The treatment groups were control (without arginine) and treatments T1, T2 and T3 having arginine in the diet at the levels of 0.02, 0.04 and 0.06 %, respectively. The blood plasma traits included in this study were protein, albumen, globulin, glucose, alkaline phosphatase, calcium, uric acid, cholesterol, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). The results indicated that adding arginine to the diet of broilers (T1, T2 and T3) resulted in significant increases in blood plasma protein, albumen, globulin, glucose, ALP, and calcium and significant decreases in blood plasma cholesterol, uric acid, AST, and ALT during all periods of the experiment. In conclusion, supplementation of the broiler ration with L-arginine resulted in improvement with respect to blood plasma traits. Therefore, arginine can be used as effective feed additive for enhancing physiological status of broiler chickens.