TY - JOUR AU - M. Morklyak AU - A. Grybanova AU - O. Sobolev PY - 2020/12/23 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Development of digestive organs in goslings raised for meat, depending on lithium level in mixed feeds JF - Scientific Messenger of LNU of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnologies. Series: Veterinary Sciences JA - nvlvet VL - 22 IS - 100 SE - Articles DO - 10.32718/nvlvet10022 UR - https://nvlvet.com.ua/index.php/journal/article/view/4094 AB - Recently, the vital necessity of lithium for living organisms has been experimentally proven and also it was previously considered as a conditionally essential trace element. Numerous experimental research conducted on various animals and poultry types have revealed quite wide and diverse properties of lithium, in particular, antimicrobial, antiviral, antitumor, anti-stress and antioxidant. The discovery of biological properties and the disclosure of biochemical mechanisms of lithium action became the basis for its use in veterinary and zootechnical practice. Lithium preparations are successfully used to treat various animal diseases, prevent and correct “technological” stresses in poultry, increase its productive qualities and improve the quality of meat products. Despite the biochemical complexity and practical significance of this trace element, lithium is still insufficiently used during feeding poultry due to the lack of optimal standards for introducing it into mixed feed. During developing optimal standards for lithium introduction into mixed feed, it is necessary to evaluate not only the indicators of poultry productivity and product quality, but also the physiological indicators of its development. The effect of additives of different lithium doses in compound feeds on the development of digestive organs in goslings raised for meat was studied in a scientific-economic experiment. The research was conducted on the breed of goslings “Danish Legart”. The duration of experiment was 70 days. The lithium introduction into compound feeds for goslings, in doses of 0.15 mg/kg, 0.20 and 0.25 mg/kg, had a positive effect on the development of their digestive organs, as evidenced by the tendency to increase the intestine mass (by 2.2–4.8 %) and its total length (by 0.5–1.1 %), as well as an increase in the liver mass (by 2.0–7.0 %) and muscle stomach (by 3.4–7.3 %). Goslings had the best macromorphological indicators of digestive development, whose mixed feed were enriched with lithium at the rate of 0.15 mg/kg during the entire growing period. A comparison of goslings live weight of the experimental groups with indicators of the development of intestines, liver and muscular stomach allows to claim that their digestive organs were better developed and functioned more actively during the growing period. ER -