Among numerous changes that have occurred in poultry feeding over the last decades, an important one consists in an increase in the dietary content of strong electrolytes (Na, K and Cl) for slaughter chickens and turkeys. This coincided with a higher incidence of such unfavourable developments as the wet litter syndrome, foot-pad dermatitis (FPD) and deformations of the birds’ legs. This paper reviews the results of the latest experiments that have analyzed the effect of different amounts of supplemental NaCl as a source of Na in diets for broiler chickens and turkeys on the concentrations of electrolytes in their blood, the incidence of FPD and leg bone deformations. It has been determined that an increase in Na in chickens’ diets within the range of 0 - 0.25% did not affect FDP symptoms. Turkey diets containing 0.20% of Na intensified the symptoms of FDP compared to a diet without added sodium chloride. In chickens, significant disorders in the mineral balance, including worse physicochemical parameters of the tibia, appeared only when the birds were given feeds with a very low content of sodium (0.02 and 0.07%), made without or with very low sodium supplementation. Increasing the amount of added sodium to over 0.14% of a diet for broiler chickens and to 0.13% for turkeys did not improve the analyzed bone mineralization parameters. The reports reviewed in this paper indicate that the risk of inferior bone mineralization process, mainly due to Na deficiency, as well as a higher litter moisture content and more frequent cases of FPD (as the dietary Na content increases) are more profound among slaughter turkeys than broiler chickens.

19.1.2014