The effects of chitosan supplementation on nutrient digestibility are shown
in Table 3. With increasing chitosan supplementation,
the digestibility of DM improved linearly
(P < 0.01) and quadratically (P < 0.01) on day 14,
and tended to increase (P = 0.052) quadratically
on day 28. Compared with the control, diets with
chitosan quadratically increased the digestibility
of CP (P < 0.01), whereas linearly (P < 0.01) and
quadratically (P < 0.01) decreased the digestibility
of CF both on days 14 and 28. In addition, digestibility
of Ca and P was not affected by chitosan
supplementation on day 14. However, on day 28,
linear increase tendency (P = 0.056) for digestibility
of Ca and quadratic increase (P < 0.05) for
digestibility of P were observed with increasing
chitosan supplementation.