Effects of Dietary Spray-Dried Bovine Plasma Protein on Broiler Growth Performance and Breast-Meat Yield

Abstract

Dietary spray-dried plasma protein (SDPP) is effective in improving growth performance of pigs raised in unsanitary conditions. However, little is known about the efficacy of SDPP in improving growth performance and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens. In the present study, graded levels of bovine SDPP (0 to 2% of the diet) were fed to male broiler chickens (Ross 308) from 1 to 42 d of age. The study was divided into 2 experiments, each with 480 chickens, with identical experimental designs. Broilers in the second experiment were raised on the soiled litter from the first experiment, thereby creating 2 environments with different levels of sanitation. Broilers fed the control diet in experiment 2 had higher mortality, lower rate of body weight gain, and were less uniform than broilers fed the control diet in experiment 1, suggesting that reusing the soiled litter in experiment 2 resulted in a relatively more unsanitary environment. Dietary bovine SDPP did not affect growth performance or carcass characteristics in the first experiment, but improved growth rate, feed conversion, breast-meat yield (as a percentage of carcass weight), and flock uniformity of the broilers in the second, more unsanitary, experiment. In conclusion, dietary SDPP, fed throughout the growth period, improved growth performance and breast-meat yield of broilers raised in an unsanitary environment.