LAUSR

Abstract A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary tannic acid and barley supplementation on growth performance, intestinal viscosity, litter quality, and footpad dermatitis (FPD) in broiler chickens. Five hundred forty-four 1-d-old male broiler chicks were randomly assigned to dietary treatments with 8 replicated pens per treatment and 17 broiler chickens pen as a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of 2 diets (a corn-soybean meal diet or a diet with 30% barley) and tannic acid (0 and 2 g/kg) in a completely randomized design. Growth performance, intestinal viscosity, litter quality, and FPD incidence and severity were recorded. The results showed that there was no interaction between diets and tannic acid levels. Barley-based diets reduced (P 0.05), it tended to reduce body weight gain (P = 0.05) and increase feed conversion ratio (FCR; P = 0.09) at 0–21 d and NH3 volatilization on 28 (P = 0.08) and 42 d (P = 0.07). Dietary tannic acid supplementation prevented the FPD lesion development and reduced (P