Abstract
The current investigation aimed to evaluate the effect of dietary inclusion of dried brewers’ grains (DBG) on growth performance, carcass traits, meat quality, nutrient digestibility, blood biochemical constituents and antioxidant indices of broiler chickens. A total of 300 unsexed one-week-old Hubbard chicks were randomly allotted to five treatment groups. The dietary treatments consisted of a basal diet as the control and DBG groups (3%, 6%, 9% and 12%, respectively). The best feed conversion ratio (FCR) was found in the group of birds fed a diet containing 9% DBG, compared the other groups. Dressing and abdominal fat percentages decreased significantly but gradually with the elevated DBG level in the diets from 6% to 12%. The inclusion of DBG in broiler diets resulted in significant positive effects on all of the sensory evaluation indicators except appearance and tenderness. Broilers fed a diet containing 3% DBG had significant higher of digestion coefficients for crude protein than those fed on the other experimental diets. Based on growth performance and health status, 3% or 9% DBG may be the optimum percentages for inclusion in the diets of poultry until six weeks old. In addition, DBG exerted several health benefits in meat, which would be reflected positively on human health.Keywords: unconventional feedstuff, inclusion, performance, chicken, meat quality
Highlights
Among the challenges to the poultry industry in developing countries are the high prices of soybean meal and yellow corn, which are used mainly for the formulation of poultry diets
The results indicated that live body weight (LBW) at 6 weeks old and 8 through 3 - 6 and 1 - 6 weeks old decreased (P
Studies have shown that as the inclusion of DBG increases, birds do not compensate for the reduced dietary metabolizable energy levels and do not increase their feed intake (Denstadli et al, 2010)
Summary
Among the challenges to the poultry industry in developing countries are the high prices of soybean meal and yellow corn, which are used mainly for the formulation of poultry diets. The best strategy to reduce the cost of poultry feeds is to use alternative cheaper local ingredients (Abd El-Hack et al, 2015; Ashour et al, 2016). It is the responsibility of nutritionists to re-examine local feedstuffs (such as DBG) and try to use them as a replacement for maize and soybean meal. Dried brewers’ grain is high in CP and ME, and could be used to reduce the quantity of maize grain and soybean meal in broiler chicken diets. The use of DBG is limited in poultry diets because of its high fibre content. The current trial was performed to evaluate on broilers the effect of various dietary inclusion levels of DBG on growth performance, carcass traits, serum metabolites, nutrient digestibility and quality of broiler meat
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