Changes in the Concentrations of Liver Total Lipids, Serum Total Lipids and Serum Cholesterol During Early Days Post-hatch in Broiler Chicks

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted in this study to investigate the changes in the concentrations of liver total lipids, serum total lipids and serum cholesterol (Experiment 1) and the efficiency of the dietary fat absorption (Experiment 2) during the early days post-hatch in broiler chicks. The liver total lipids decreased significantly (p<0.05) from day 2 to 8. Depending on the status of the residual yolk sac (deutectomized or intact residual yolk sac), the concentration of the liver total lipids exhibited different strength of correlation with post-hatch days. A stronger correlation was expressed by deutectomized (r2 = 0.98) compared to sham operated chicks (r2 = 0.53). The serum total lipids decreased significantly (p<0.05) over 8 days post-hatch. This reduction was strongly correlated with days post-hatch in both deutectomized and sham operated chicks (r2 = 0.88 and 0.91, respectively). Moreover, the 2 groups did not show significant difference (p<0.05) from each other over the mentioned period. The serum cholesterol decreased significantly (p<0.05) over 8 days post-hatch. Since it showed significant (p<0.05) increase at day 4 compared with other post-hatch days, the correlation between days post-hatch and serum cholesterol was low (r2 = 0.70).