Exogenous Emulsifiers and Multi-Carbohydrase Improved Growth Performance of The Broiler Chickens Fed Low Energy Diets

Dietary energy is vital in animal nutrition as it is a major cost component in animal diets. Dietary fat and oil contribute high levels of energy into the diet, and different fat types affect growth performance of fast growing broiler chickens (Meng et al., 2004). Furthermore, decreased fat digestion and absorption were reported in young broiler chickens (Al-Marzooqi and Leeson, 2000). Addition of emulsifier and multi-carbohydrase resulted in improved energy availability and growth performance in broiler chickens (Upadhaya et al., 2018; Mohammadigheisar et al., 2018). There is a limited number of studies that have shown the performance benefits with the combination of emulsifier and multi-carbohydrase enzymes in broiler chickens. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the effects of exogenous emulsifiers and multi-carbohydrase supplementation, as a combination, into a reduced energy density diet on growth performance and visceral organ weights of broiler chickens from hatch to 21 days.

168 one-day-old Ross male broiler chickens were allocated in a completely randomized design to 24 pens and each pen assigned to one of four treatments to give six replications with seven birds in each cage. Dietary treatments were: positive control with recommended energy level (PC), negative control with 100 kcal/kg lower energy than PC (NC), NC+CSL (0.05% calcium stearoyl-2 lactylate as the emulsifier) and NC+CSL+M (0.05% multi-carbohydrase). Corn and soybean-meal-based control diets containing soybean oil were formulated to meet the Ross 308 nutrition specification (Aviagen, 2014). Diets were provided on an ad-libitum basis in a mash form. Emulsifiers and multi-carbohydrase were top-dressed onto the basal diet to make dietary treatments. Growth performance and visceral organ weights were measured on day 21. Our results revealed that emulsifier and multi-carbohydrase supplementation into low energy density diets improved (P < 0.05) the body weight (5%), weight gain (4%), and feed efficiency (10%) of the broiler chickens compared to the broiler chickens fed NC diets from hatch to 21 days. However, the diet containing emulsifier and multi-carbohydrase did not affect (P > 0.05) visceral organ weights of broiler chickens fed low energy density diets. In conclusion, our results indicated that a combination of emulsifier and multi-carbohydrase in reduced energy diets has the ability to improve growth performance of broiler chickens by curtailing the negative impact of low energy in the diets.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This paper was financially supported by the research fund of Chungnam National University, Republic of Korea.