Abstract
Xylanase enzymes and other feed additives are being used more commonly in poultry feed to reduce feed cost, improve performance, and maintain gut health. Five corn-soy-based dietary treatments were designed to compare the effect of different inclusion levels of high-efficiency GH11 xylanase on live performance, gut lesions, and Clostridium perfringens excretion in littler samples of broiler chickens. Diets were the standard diet (positive control; PC); a diet of reduced energy by 130 kcal/kg diet (negative control; NC); NC with xylanase at 10 XU/g of feed (NC + 10); NC with xylanase at 12.5 XU/g of feed (NC + 12.5); NC with xylanase at 15 XU/g of feed (NC + 15). Data were analyzed with one-way ANOVA. At 42 d, birds fed NC + 12.5 and NC + 15 were heavier (P < 0.05) than NC and comparable improvement to birds fed PC. Significant Improvement in FCR (P = 0.0001) was observed from 1 to 42 d for NC + 12.5 and NC + 15 compared with NC. Supplementation of xylanase reduced (P < 0.005) 21 d intestinal lesion score at 21 d with further improvement (P < 0.0001) at 42 d. NC + 15 reduced lesion scores by 24% compared with NC. Xylanase supplementations reduced litter C. perfringens cell forming unit per gram (CFU/g) compared with NC with the highest reduction of NC + 15 treatment by ~27%. In conclusion, xylanase can be included in reduced-energy diets up to 15 XU/g of feed to improve live performance, energy digestibility, and reduce intestinal lesion scores in broilers.
Highlights
Providing adequate quantities of animal protein to meet the demands of a continuously growing population requires that livestock producers must increase the production efficiency of farm animals
There was no significant difference in feed consumption (FC) among treatments; body weight gain (BWG) increased with the increase in the xylanase inclusion rate from 1 to 42 d
The improvement in BWG corresponded to improvement in feed conversion ratio (FCR) of 2, 4, and 5 points with adding xylanase to Negative Control (NC) at 10, 12.5, and 15 XU/g feed, respectively, compared with NC
Summary
Providing adequate quantities of animal protein to meet the demands of a continuously growing population requires that livestock producers must increase the production efficiency of farm animals. Feed composition plays an important role in efficiently providing birds with the required nutrients for maintenance and growth It is well-known that various feed ingredients have antinutritional factors that would either negatively affect digestion, or trap nutrients within their cell wall structure, making them unavailable for the bird to digest and utilize [2, 3] because the bird lacks the endogenous enzymes needed to hydrolyze these structures [4, 5]. Several commercially available exogenous enzymes have been proven to increase the digestibility of poorly digested cereals to a much greater extent than well-digested cereals [7,8,9,10]; to achieve the maximum improvement in NSP hydrolysis, multiple enzymes may be needed depending on the ingredients used in a diet to hydrolyze the various fibers resulting in an improved energy recovery. Few studies have focused on the effect of GH11 xylanases on performance and gut health of broilers
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