Growth Performance, Organ Weights and Some Blood Parameters of Replacement Laying Pullets Fed with Increasing Levels of Wheat Bran

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the growth performance, organ weights, and selected blood parameters of replacement laying pullets (development phase) fed increasing levels of wheat bran (WB). A total of 240 70-d-old White Leghorn pullets (Hybrid L 33 ) were evaluated for seven weeks. Birds were assigned to three dietary treatments according to a completely randomized design. Treatments consisted of diets containing 100 (T1), 150 (T2), or 200 g/kg (T3) of WB in partial replacement of corn, with 10 replicates per treatment of eight birds per replicate. Birds fed T2 presented higher body weight (p<0.05) compared with T1 and T3 (1112.52 to 1163.35 g). Also, T2 birds presented higher methionine plus cystine intake relative to T1 (0.38 to 0.40 g/ bird/day). Likewise, a higher inclusion of WB (200 g/kg) increased crude fiber (2.29 to 2.63 g/bird/day) and crude fat (1.98 to 3.58 g/bird/day) intakes (p<0.05). However, the experimental treatments did not affect the relative weight of the organs or small intestine and cecum length (p>0.05). Serum concentration of triacylglycerols, cholesterol, calcium, phosphorus, hematocrit, or hemoglobin levels were not significantly different (p>0.05) among treatments. These findings indicate a beneficial effect of use of 150 g/kg of wheat bran on the growth performance of pullets during the development phase; however, the inclusion of this cereal up to 200 g/kg had no effect on organ weights and blood parameters.

Growth Performance, Carcass Traits and Breast Meat Fatty Acids Profile of Helmeted Guinea Fowls (Numida meleagris) Fed Increasing Level of Linseed (Linum usitatissimum) and Pumpkin Seed (Cucurbita moschata) Meals

“…In addition, Walugembe et al (2014) emphasize that the efficiency of fiber utilization in birds is related to intestinal transit time, which changes by poultry species. However, Martínez et al (2015) shows that when unsaturated lipids are added to bird diets rich in fiber, they counteract the negative effect of these structural carbohydrates in the digestive system, because they may reduce the rate of intestinal transit. Aguilar et al (2011), Martínez et al (2015) and Kanakri et al (2017) when including high concentrations of polyunsaturated fat in the bird diets reported similar results.…”

Effect of Different Levels of Multienzymes on Immune Response, Blood Hematology and Biochemistry, Antioxidants Status and Organs Histology of Broiler Chicks Fed Standard and Low-Density Diets

“…This work was executed to study the effect of supplementing three multienzyme levels (0, 0.1, and 0.2%) with two types of diet (SD vs. LDD) on immune response, blood hematology and biochemistry, antioxidant status, and organ histology of broilers during 1-38 days of age. The trend in using LDD in feeding broiler chicks has been recently discussed and may be a possible approach to decrease growth pressure on the skeletal system of birds, and reduce feed cost and environmental pollution (23,24,58). Data showed that inclusion of wheat bran in broiler diets at 10% induced a significant growth depression in BWG and FCR only during the early growth period, reaching 6.61 and 6.74%, respectively, which persisted in only BWG during the whole period, reaching 5.6%.…”

Effects of Dietary Supplementation with Red Algae Powder (Chondrus crispus) on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits, Lymphoid Organ Weights and Intestinal pH in Broilers

“…However, T2 depressed the carcass relative weight (Table 3). It found a relationship betweenthe high concentration of secondary metabolites and a decrease of BW and carcass yield, because these phytochemicals apparently develop anti-nutritional factors, which decrease digestion and absorption of nutrients and inflame the small intestine (Woyengo et al, 2011;Martínez et al, 2015). Table 4 shows that the thymus relative weight increased in T2, this is determined by the activation of the immune system, which could increase the production of T cells by jointly destroying the macrophages (Smith & Hunt, 2004;Chen et al, 2013).…”