Synergistic Effects of Dietary Supplemental Bile Acids on Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Selected Breeds of Broiler Chickens (Published)
The competitive advantage of any feed manufacturing company is the trade secret which is usually driven by innovation. The quest to offer exceptional animal diets to farmers is the premise to which this experiment was carried out. It’s an industry driven research geared towards reducing cost of feed and improve the profitability in the poultry agribusiness. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of bile acids on the growth performance and carcass characteristics of the two popular broiler breeds in Nigeria. The experiment was designed in a 2×5 factorial. That is, two different breeds of broiler chickens and dietary supplemental levels of Bile Acids. A total of Nine Hundred & Ninety (990) day-old-chicks (38g ± 0.03) were used for the experiment. In order words, 495 Arbor Acer day-old-chicks were obtained from FIDAN hatchery farm and another 495 Ross 308 day-old-chicks from AGRITED hatchery farm. Each set of breed of birds were randomly assigned to five (5) treatments, with 33 birds per pen and three (3) replicates per treatment. The brooding temperature was kept at an average of 29.50C from the first to second week of age. Thereafter, the temperature was lowered to 220C for the rest of experimental period. The experimental diets were formulated as follows: control treatment (without bile acids but 77 kcal/kg higher in ME) and four levels of supplemented bile acids broiler diets with 77 kcal/kg shortfall in ME. There was no significant difference among the selected breeds of broilers. At 150g of dietary supplemental bile acids, the growth performance & feed conversion was improved and significantly optimized at P>0.01. In spite of high feed intake by birds on supplemental bile acids, there was high compensatory conversion to body weight. However, the dressing percentage, Head, Liver and Gizzard in carcass were significantly improved (P>0.05) for broilers fed diets supplemented with 100g & 150g bile acids. In contrast, abdominal fat weight was reduced significantly (P>0.05) across all the levels of supplemental bile acids. Thus, the primal cuts, intestine weight and length were unaffected by dietary supplemented bile acids. Again, the cost of feed was reduced by 2% approximately thereby improving the profitability of the value-chain players which drive the agribusiness activities. Therefore, supplementation of broiler diets with 100g – 150g bile acids per metric ton can effectively enhance the growth performance and carcass traits.
Keywords: Bile acids, Growth Performance, breeds, broiler chickens, carcass characteristics