The literature reports dealing with the dietary electrolyte ratio (K+Cl)/ Na are rare, although the concept has been proposed by Mongin in 1981. Thus, its application appears to be limited as a nutritional strategy in feed formulation, which usually meets only the minimum nutritional recommendations in Na, K and Cl. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of broilers submitted to different dietary electrolyte balances (DEB) Na+K-Cl and dietary electrolyte ratio (DER) from 1 to 21 d of age. A total of 1575 male 1-d old broiler chicks were randomly assigned to 5 treatments with 9 replicates of 35 chicks each. The treatments consisted of diets with 5 relation of
electrolytes, arising from combinations DEB/DER 150/3, 250/2, 250/3, 250/4 and 350/3, with use of NaCl, NaHCO3, KCl, K2SO4 and CaCl2. All diets were corn-soybean meal based and formulated to meet or exceed the NRC (1994) requirements. Chicks had ad libitum access to feed and
water in floor pens with wood shavings as ...