Table 7.

Effects of stale maize on the serum cytokines in broilers

Items	CON1)	Stale maize1)	SEM	p-value
IL-2 (g/mL)
d 21	104a	91.4b	3.31	0.03
d 42	133	127	3.85	0.32
IL-6 (ng/mL)
d 21	16.8a	14.3b	0.31	<0.01
d 42	20.8a	19.7b	0.28	0.04
IFN-γ (ng/mL)
d 21	18.2a	16.1b	0.20	0.02
d 42	18.5	18.3	0.22	0.76
TNF-α (pg/mL)
d 21	40.9a	38.4b	0.65	0.04
d 42	21.8	20.7	0.71	0.18

Means represent 20 cages of broilers with 4 birds per cage (n = 20/group).

¹⁾CON, basal diet; Stale maize, basal diet containing 100% stale maize.

SEM, standard error of the means; IL, interleukin; IFN-γ, interferon-γ; TNF-α, tumor necrosis factor-α.

^a,bMeans with different superscripts in a row differ significantly (p<0.05).