Morphology of the intestinal mucosa and growth performance of chickens fed diets containing sugar cane extract

To investigate the growth performance and small intestinal histological changes in chickens fed sugar cane extract (SCE), 42 layer-type chicks were divided into three groups of 0, 0.05, and 0.10% dietary SCE diets. The growth performance tended to be better in all dietary SCE groups. Intestinal villus height, villus area, cell area and cell mitosis number of the duodenum showed a higher values in all the SCE groups, and the cell area of 0.10% SCE group and cell mitosis of all the SCE groups were higher than the 0% SCE group (P<0.05). After feeding of dietary SCE, protuberated cells and aggregation of protuberated cells were found in the duodenum and jejunum, as well as segmented fi lamentous bacteria appeared in the ileum. These suggest that the dietary SCE might be induce the structural hypertrophy of intestinal villi and epithelial cells on villus tip surface, resulting in the 56% heavier body weight gain in the SCE groups than the control.