High copper feeding, is used as a growth promoter of broiler chickens. Performance as well as serum and muscle cholesterol of 1200 broiler chickens (600 male and 600 female) which were fed diets supplemented with 50, 100 or 150 mg copper kg-1 (as cupric citrate), or 200 mg copper kg-1 (as cupric sulfate pentahydrate), or an unsupplemented control diet were determined in an experiment of 5 x 2 complete randomized blocks with 3 replicates (5 treatments and 2 sexes). The feeds, based on corn and soybean meal and adequate in all nutrients (12 mg copper kg-1 in the control diet), and water were supplied ad libitum during the 42 day experimental period. There were no effects (P>0.05) of treatments on weight gain (WG), feed intake (FI), feed/gain ratio (F/G) and mortality + culling (M+C) during 1 to 21 or 22 to 42 days; the averages were 0.778 and 1.501 kg for WG, 1.181 and 3.087 kg for FI, 1.540 and 2.060 for F/G and 1.42 and 2.08% for M+C, respectively. At the end of the trial the liveweight (2.310 kg), the average daily gain (55 g), the production index (282.2), the serum cholesterol (129 mg dL-1) and breast muscle cholesterol (55.9 mg 100 g-1) were not affected by treatments either (P>0.05). Male broilers were superior to the females (P<0.05) in the performance traits (liveweight 2.530 vs 2.090 kg; F/G 1.85 vs 1.90), but the cholesterol levels in serum and muscle were similar across sexes (P>0.05).
broiler chickens; cholesterol; copper sulfate; cupric citrate; growth promoter