Effects of milling and pelleting of maize, barley and wheat on their metabolizable energy value for cockerels and chicks

Abstract

Metabolizable energy (ME) measurements were made on chicks and cockerels on diets comprising 770 g/kg of maize, barley or wheat milled to three moduli of fineness and given either as a mash or pelleted and crumbled. There were significant differences in ME among grains, between diet forms, and with age of bird. With chicks, ME (MJ/kg dry matter (DM)) of all three diets was lower for the mash form (13.98) than for the pelleted and crumbled (14.29), but with cockerels pelleting increased ME only with the wheat diets. The oil content of the grains was influenced by treatment. The pelleted diets contained more oil than those in mash and crumbled forms. These oil contents did not explain differences in the ME of the different treatments. Since there was no effect of modulus of fineness on ME, it was concluded that coarse milling was adequate and could reduce the cost of diet preparation. © 1983.