Intestinal digesta viscosity decreases during coccidial infection in broilers.

1. The effect of intestinal digesta viscosity on bird performance in chickens with coccidiosis was compared to those without coccidiosis. 2. Six hundred chicks were divided into five groups: one control group was fed a basal maize/soyabean-based diet and the other groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with 2, 4, 6 or 8 g carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) per kg of feed. At 14 d of age half the birds were individually inoculated with sporulated oocysts of Eimeria acervulina and Eimeria praecox. 3. Intestinal digesta viscosity increased with increasing inclusion of CMC. This effect was considerably less pronounced in inoculated than in non-inoculated birds. 4. There was a significant negative effect on live weight gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR) with increasing CMC inclusion in non-inoculated birds, but in inoculated birds there was no clear relation between CMC inclusion and performance. Neither intestinal lesion scores, nor numbers of Clostridium pefringens in the caeca, were significantly affected by CMC inclusion. 5. Across all diets inoculation impaired growth rate by 9% and FCR by 8%, but did not affect the amount of C. perfringens in the caeca.