Dietary encapsulated essential oils and organic acids mixture improves gut health in broiler chickens challenged with necrotic enteritis

Table 5 Effect of dietary BLJ supplementation on jejunal lesion scores, morphology and goblet cell numbers in broiler chickens challenged with NE at 28 d of age

Items	NE¹	Jejunum lesion scores	Villous height, μm	Crypt depth, μm	VH/CD²	GC³ cells
BLJ, mg/kg
0	–	0.14^c	439.66	61.93^b	7.07^b	23.57
0	+	1.33^a	398.69	112.52^a	3.56^c	17.23
500	–	0.29^bc	507.07	59.00^b	8.66^a	23.03
500	+	0.58^b	446.39	66.69^b	6.75^b	23.87
SEM⁴		0.07	15.00	4.91	0.41	1.06
Main effect
0		0.74	419.18^b	87.22	5.31	20.40
500		0.43	476.73^a	62.85	7.70	23.45
Non-challenged		0.21	473.37	60.47	7.86	23.30
Challenged		0.96	422.54	89.60	5.15	20.55
P-value⁵
BLJ		0.043	0.046	< 0.01	< 0.01	0.130
Challenged		< 0.01	0.076	< 0.01	< 0.01	0.170
Challenged×BLJ		< 0.01	0.720	< 0.01	0.011	0.078

^{a, b, c}Means within the same column with different superscripts differ significantly (P < 0.05)
¹NE Co-challenged with Eimeria spp. and Clostridium perfringens; −, without NE challenge; +, with NE challenge
²VH/CD villus height/crypt depth ratio
³GC cells goblet cell numbers per mm²
⁴SEM standard error of the mean
⁵P-values represent the main effect of the diet, the main effect of the NE challenge, and the interaction between the dietary treatments and NE challenge

ISSN: 2049-1891