Effect of Dietary Inclusion of Sunflower Meal on Performance, Carcass Traits, Litter Moisture and Economic Efficiency of Broiler Chickens

Abstract

An experiment was designed to investigate the influence of different levels of dietary inclusion of sunflower meal on broiler's productive performance, serum lipid profile, carcass traits, litter moisture and economic efficiency. One hundred and twenty, day-old Cobb broiler chicks were assigned randomly into 5 equal groups, each contained 24 chicks in three replicate pens (8 chicks/pen). Group 1 was fed on basal diet without sunflower meal and kept as a control group, while groups from 2 to 5 were fed on diets contained 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10% sunflower meal, respectively. Birds individual weights and pen feed consumed were determined for each feeding period for determining the average body weight (BW), average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR). At the trial end, a total of six birds from each group were picked randomly, slaughtered and the visceral organs (liver, gizzard, heart and spleen) plus fat pad were separately weighed for calculating the dressing percentage and the percentage of internal organs relative to carcass weight. Furthermore, litter moisture percentage and economic efficiency were calculated at the trial end. The averages of BW, ADG, ADFI and FCR were not significantly differed among groups. No differences (P>0.05) were observed in the serum lipid parameters and carcass traits among experimental groups. However, the spleen percentage was significantly higher in broilers group that fed on 10% sunflower meal in comparison to those fed on 2.5, 5 and 7.5 sunflower meal, while the litter moisture percentage was not significantly affected. The best economic efficiency was reported in broilers group fed on 10% sunflower meal but the difference did not reach the significance level. It is concluded that levels up to 10% of sunflower meal can be successfully incorporated in broiler chicken diets. Utilizing alternative protein rich feed ingredients in poultry nutrition is of an ongoing interest for both nutritionists and poultry producers. Although, soybean meal is the standard source of protein in poultry diets, but alternative sources such as corn gluten meal, canola meal, distillers grains (DDGS), guar meal, and sunflower meal become currently available in the Egyptian market at reasonable prices. Sunflower meal is ''the by-product of the oil extraction process of sunflower seed'' which belongs to the genus Helianthus annuus that is a mixture of protein containing kernel and hulls [1]. Its content of protein varies from 28 to 36%, and fiber from 18 to 30%. Although dietary inclusion of sunflower meal could lower the diet cost, the main nutritional limitations of its inclusion were lower energy and lysine, and higher crude fiber content in comparison with soybean meal. These limitations reduce the inclusion level of sunflower meal in chicken diets [2]. Most of the previous studies were conducted to evaluate the inclusion effect of sunflower meal in broiler's diets; some researchers recommended its inclusion at levels up to 10% [2,3], while others at levels up to 30% [4]. From a practical point of view, dietary inclusion of sunflower meal should be less that 10%, because increasing the level of sunflower meal will increase the need for adding more dietary oil to restore the required metabolizable energy with subsequent adverse effect on pellet quality. This experiment was planned to explore the effect of the different levels of sunflower meal (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10%) on the broiler's performance, serum lipid profile, carcass traits, and litter moisture.