Effect of High Fiber Ingredients on the Performance, Metabolizable Energy and Digestibility of Broiler and Layer Chicks

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of feeding various fiber ingredients on the performance of chickens bred for egg or meat production from 1 to 21 d of age. The lower fiber diet was based on a traditional corn-soybean meal (SBM) diet and the higher fiber diet was formulated by addition of 60 g/kg of both dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) and wheat bran in the first period of feeding and 80 g/kg of both DDGS and wheat bran in the second period of feeding to the corn-SBM base diet. Two lines of male chicks, Ross 308 broiler and Hy-Line W36 layers, were randomly assigned to cages with 11 replicates of 8 chicks for each of the four treatments. The evaluation criteria consisted of average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), feed efficiency (FE), nitrogen-corrected apparent metabolizable energy and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) digestibility. The higher dietary fiber diet significantly reduced broiler ADG for the 1-12 d and 1-21 d experimental periods. Neutral detergent fiber digestibility was higher in the layer chicks than in the broiler chicks regardless of the diet, and higher dietary fiber concentration resulted in increased ileal and total NDF across lines. These results suggest that layer chicks are able to better utilize feed ingredients rich in fiber content compared to broiler chicks, possibly due to decreased ADFI and increased fiber utilization.