Fig. 3

Synergy between DCA and butyrate in alleviating necrotic enteritis (NE) in broiler chickens. A total of 210 day-of-hatch male Cobb broilers were allotted to one of seven groups (n = 30) supplemented with or without 1 g/kg NaB, 0.75 g/kg DCA (DCA1), 1.5 g/kg DCA (DCA2), or a mixture of 1 g/kg NaB and 0.75 g/kg DCA (NaB + DCA1) or 1 g/kg NaB and 1.5 g/kg DCA (NaB + DCA2). Six groups of animals were subjected to NE by sequential infections with Eimeria maxima on d 10 and Clostridium perfringens on d 14, while the remaining one group of 30 chickens were mock-infected as negative controls. A Animal survival (%) between d 14–17. Note that two groups (DCA2 and NaB + DCA1) are significantly different from the NE group (^*P < 0.05) based on the log-rank test. B Individual body weight gains of surviving animals between d 10–17. Data shown are mean ± SEM. Means not sharing a common superscript letter denote statistical significance (P < 0.05) based on one-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s test. C Frequency (%) of jejunal lesion scores on d 17