Boost barley-based-diet fed broiler performance by using an enzyme
Take Home Message: Use B-xylanase enzymes in barley-based diets to improve the performance of broilers to similar levels as birds fed wheat-based diets.
Enzymes have the potential to improve the utilisation of barley-based diets – increasing bird performance and reducing the cost of broiler production.
Some good news from researchers in the UK and Pakistan, who’ve completed a study that compared the effect of adding a commercial fibrolytic enzyme to wheat and barley-based diets on the utilisation of either diet by broilers from 0 to 35 days of age.
“The birds had greater body weights for wheat- than barley-based diets at most days of age,” the University of Newcastle’s Abdul Shakoor Chaudhry told delegates at the British Society of Animal Science’s annual conference.
“However, enzyme addition appeared to have greater effect on body weights when barley plus enzyme was compared with barley without enzyme at 21, 28 and 35 days of age,” he added.
Cereal grains, such as wheat, have been regarded as one of the most affordable ingredients to supply dietary energy for fast growing broilers. But broilers compete with humans for wheat to satisfy their nutritional needs and also they cannot effectively utilise wheat due to the limited ability of their gut enzymes to utilise dietary fibre.
“The efficiency of wheat utilisation can be increased by adding exogenous enzymes into cereal based diets for these birds,” said Dr Chaudhry, explaining the rationale behind his team’s work.
Two sets of four diets were prepared by mixing up to 650g of coarsely ground wheat or barley with other ingredients, with or without an enzyme. A total of 156 day-old female Ross 308 chicks were used in the trial and each of the four diets was allocated to three pens of 13 chicks each.
These chicks were offered ad-lib water and relevant starter diets for 21 days and grower- cum-finisher diets for another 14 days to the age of 35 days. Weekly body weight per chick and feed consumption per pen was recorded and feed efficiency calculated.
“And we found that that birds continued to increase their diet intake with the increase in their age and so maintained a healthy growth,” said Dr Chaudhry.
“The body weight at day 0 did not differ between diets, confirming that the initial bird distribution was uniform across the diets. While the diets caused significant differences in body weight at 7, 14, 21 and 35 days of age, they did not differ at 28 days of age.
“The impact of wheat and barley based diets was variable depending upon the age of the birds. The mean body weight of birds consuming wheat-based diets was greater than those on barley-based diets, showing significance at days 7 and 14,” he added.
To view proceedings of all summaries presented at the Annual Conference 2009 http://www.bsas.org.uk/Publications/Annual_Conference_Proceedings/ To view all Powerpoint presentations http://www.bsas.org.uk/Members_Area/ For further information contact: BSAS on 0131 445 4508 or bsas@sac.ac.uk
