Table 1.

Effects of CORT treatment on growth performance, plasma metabolites, organ relative weights, and glycogen contents of muscle and liver in chicks

	Treatment1
Items	Control	CORT	P-value
Growth performance2
Initial BW, g/bird	144.11 ± 2.10	144.65 ± 1.46	NS
Final BW, g/bird	380.21 ± 5.31a	280.10 ± 4.25b	<0.0005
ADG, g/d	33.73 ± 0.59a	19.35 ± 0.50b	<0.0005
ADFI, g/d	38.42 ± 0.65	38.42 ± 0.57	NS
F:G, g/g	1.14 ± 0.002b	1.99 ± 0.02a	<0.0005
Plasma metabolites3
GLU, mmol/L	11.66 ± 0.39b	13.86 ± 0.45a	0.0026
TG, mmol/L	0.49 ± 0.08b	2.26 ± 0.17a	<0.0005
TCHO, mmol/L	3.35 ± 0.16b	7.88 ± 0.87a	0.0002
CORT, pg/mL	489.44 ± 98.96b	4,582.94 ± 981.23a	0.0010
Organ relative weights3
Heart, %	0.52 ± 0.01a	0.47 ± 0.01b	0.0102
Liver, %	2.88 ± 0.26b	5.11 ± 0.25a	<0.0005
Spleen, %	0.11 ± 0.02a	0.06 ± 0.003b	0.0028
Abdominal fat, %	1.32 ± 0.05b	2.20 ± 0.12a	<0.0005
Bursa, %	0.19 ± 0.01a	0.07 ± 0.01b	<0.0005
Glycogen content3
Liver, mg/g	12.57 ± 1.41b	20.54 ± 2.41a	0.0127
Breast muscle, mg/g	1.19 ± 0.12b	2.50 ± 0.42a	0.0073
Leg muscle, mg/g	0.82 ± 0.03	0.84 ± 0.04	NS

¹Control, control group (basal diet); CORT, CORT-treated group (30 mg/kg diet); NS, nonsignificant.

²Values are expressed as mean ± SEM, n = 6.

³Values are expressed as mean ± SEM, n = 8.

^a,bMean values in a row sharing no common superscript are significantly different (P < 0.05).