Vol. 8, Issue 2 (2019)

Author(s):
Pravesh Kumari, Pooja Kundu, Sushma Kajal and G Narang

Abstract:
Infectious bursal disease is an acute, highly contagious viral infection of chickens manifested by inflammation and subsequent atrophy of the bursa of Fabricius and various degrees of immunosuppression. A number of vaccination strategies have been applied in the field to control IBD. Live commercially available hot strains of vaccines for IBD lead to varying levels of immunosuppression which increases the bird’s vulnerability to various infections. A study was conducted to observe the effect of Spirulina feeding on serum protein level in Infectious bursal disease (IBD) vaccinated broiler chickens. One hundred and two day old chickens were reared up to 38^th day of age. At the age of 10 days, chickens were divided randomly into four groups (groups A (33), B (27), C (21) and D (21) having different number of chickens. From 10 to 20 days, feed of all the chickens of group B and D was supplemented with probiotic Spirulina at the dose rate of 1.0% of feed (i.e. 1.0 g/ 100 gm of feed) whereas all chickens of group A and C were given feed without Spirulina supplementation. All the chickens of group C and D were vaccinated with IBDV intermediate plus strain vaccine at the age of 17 days whereas no vaccine was given to the chickens of groups A, and B. There were significant higher values of serum total protein and albumin in Spirulina fed group. Serum total protein concentration was significantly low in IBD vaccinated group. Feeding Spirulina in IBD vaccinated group chickens increased the serum total protein concentration and it becomes almost equal to control group chickens. Spirulina supplementation was able to slightly reduce the effect of IBD vaccine on total protein and albumin level. It indicates that Spirulina supplementation at 1.0 percent level in feed from 10 to 20 days of age along with IBD vaccine helped in reducing the effect of hot strain of vaccines.