Abstract
An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of various dietary levels of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SC) on the growth performance and meat quality (i.e., tenderness and oxidative stability) of Ross broiler chickens. Two hundred and forty day- old broiler chicks were fed four experimental diets with graded levels of SC at 0.0, 0.3, 1.0 and 3.0%. Each treatment consisted of six cages with 10 chicks per cage. Feed and water were provided ad libitum throughout the experiment that lasted for 5 wk. Birds were switched from starter to finisher diets at 3 wk of age. The average BW gains of broiler chickens increased (linear p 0.05) by dietary treatments up to 10 d of incubation. At 15 d of incubation, TBARS values of breast and thigh meats from all SC-treated groups were significantly lower (p<0.05) than those of the control. It appears that dietary SC could enhance growth performance of broiler chickens, and improve tenderness and oxidative stability of broiler meats. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 5 : 699-703)
Highlights
Various strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SC) have long been fed to animals as a source of unknown growth factor
Growth-promoting effect of SC that observed at 3 wk of age was observed at 5 wk of age
Feed intake increased as the SC levels in the diets increased during either 4-5 wk of age or 0-5 wk of age
Summary
Various strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SC) have long been fed to animals as a source of unknown growth factor. It was reported that feeding SC to chickens improved weight gain and feed/gain ratio (Onifade et al, 1999, 2000). On the other hand, Madriqal et al (1993) failed to observe the positive effect of feeding SC on body weight in broiler chickens. In addition to growth performance, there are literature data (Akiba et al, 2001; Lee et al, 2002) showing that enrichment of diets with yeast could favorably improve broiler meat quality. Edible meats sampled from broiler chickens fed a diet containing SC exhibited increased tenderness (Bonomi et al, 1999) and increased water-holding capacity (Lee et al, 2002). The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of graded levels of
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