Dietary fat content and supplementation with sodium butyrate: effects on growth performance, carcass traits, meat quality, and myopathies in broiler chickens

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the dietary inclusion of microencapsulated sodium butyrate (Na-butyrate; 0, 150, and 300 mg Na-butyrate/kg diet) and dietary fat reduction (7.7% vs. 6.7% in the grower diet; 8.9% vs. 7.7% in the finisher diet) in 792 (half male and half female) broiler chickens on growth performance, carcass traits, and meat quality and the occurrence of wooden breast (WB), white striping (WS), and spaghetti meat (SM). Dietary supplementation with Na-butyrate did not affect the growth performance, carcass traits, meat quality traits, or myopathy rates. Dietary fat reduction did not influence feed intake (FI) but decreased average daily gain (ADG); increased feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P < 0.001); and decreased the occurrence of WS (-38%; P < 0.01), WB (-48%; P < 0.05), and SM (-90%; P < 0.01). Dietary fat reduction also increased cold carcass weight (P < 0.01), carcass yield (P < 0.05), and pectoralis major yield (P < 0.05), whereas meat quality was not affected. Compared to females, males had high body weight, ADG, and FI and low FCR (P < 0.001) at the end of the trial. Moreover, cold carcass weight and hind leg yield were higher in males than in females (P < 0.001), whereas females had higher carcass, breast, and p. major yields (P < 0.001). Males showed a higher rate of WB (P < 0.001) and a lower rate of SM (P < 0.01) than females, whereas WS occurrence did not differ between sexes. In conclusion, Na-butyrate supplementation did not affect growth performance, carcass traits, or meat quality. Conversely, the reduction in dietary fat greatly decreased myopathy occurrence, whereas moderately impaired growth performance.