Fat Digestion and Absorption Analysis by Employing Different Kind of Emulsifiers in Broilers

Poultry is emerging as most sought after protein source comparative to others animal protein sources and reasons are many, it is highly balanced with vitamins, minerals, proteins and has lesser fat and carbohydrate comparatively to mutton, beef and fish and surprisingly cheaper and easily available.

Mean age of culling is being reduced every 3-5 years by a day and feed conversion is on linear improvement, thanks to the genetic selection of the parent stocks and increased nutritional intervention.

Fat is a dense source of energy for these birds and being a relatively short digestive system and limited secretion of bile, birds need to be supplemented with a very effective emulsifier that not only helps in digestion of fat but also fat soluble vitamins. It increases digesta passage time and there by improve digestion, it also reduces dustiness of the feed and helpful in reducing friction at die level during pelleting.

In poultry we employ different sources of fats with variable level of fatty acids, some may be with relatively high level of unsaturated fatty acids and less saturated fatty acids which are mainly from plant sources like crude soyabean oil, rice bran oil except palmolein oil but some sources are with more saturated fatty acids and less unsaturated fatty acids like animal fats, beef tallow, mutton tallow and lard.

Saturated fatty acids are difficult to digest as they are less polar and unsaturated fatty acids are easy to digest due to more polarity. During first 2 weeks, fat digestion is less or partial due to less secretion of FABP (fatty acid binding protein).

Major site of fat digestion is jejunum (75% digestion) and some fat is digested in ileum (15-25%).

The energetic value of oils and fats depend on the following:

» The length of the carbonic chain,

» The number of double bonds,

» The presence or absence of ester bonds (triglycerides or free fatty acids),

» The specific arrangements of the saturated and unsaturated fatty acids on the glycerol backbone,

» The composition of the free fatty acid,

» The composition of the diet,

» The quantity and the type of the triglycerides supplemented in the diet,

» The intestinal flora, sex, and age of the birds.

» Ratio of saturated to unsaturated fatty acids

Inefficient fat digestion will lead to steatorrhea and substantial loss in this precious nutrient which leads to pasty vents and unhealthy litter.

The term fat is usually used to refer triglycerides of variable fatty acid profile, some of them are solid at room temperature and others are liquid

» Molecules having positive & negative charges are called polar like water & without charges are non-polar like fats and oil.

» Polar dissolves polar and non-polar dissolves non-polar

»Molecules having positive & negative charges are called polar like water & without charges are non-polar like fats and oil.

»Polar dissolves polar and non-polar dissolves non-polar

»But what happens when polar components dissolve in non-polar?

»They remain immiscible and present in 2 phases separated from each other like water and oil.

»To make them miscible we need some connecting molecule which has polar as well as non-polar ends called as emulsifiers.

»Emulsifiers are known as an important class of additives used in animals and poultry feed.

»Emulsifiers are surface-active ingredient which adsorbs at the newly formed oil–water interface during emulsion preparation, and protects the newly formed droplets against immediate recoalescence.

»They, thereby help in efficient utilization of fatty acids and nutrients across all the diets and aid in reducing feed and animal production costs.

»The emulsifiers commonly used in poultry industry include soy-lecithin, milk derived casein, lysophatidylcholine or lysolecithin (lecithin), bile salt, glycerol polyethylene glycol ricinoleate and sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, etc.

»These are used in poultry nutrition for improving poultry performance, digestibility of the nutrients, especially fats and lipids.

»The size of emulsion droplet is ~ 5000 A and surface 0 of microvilli tip is 1000 A hence it is highly difficult to accomodate such a larger size droplet for absorption.

»Triglycerides mixes with lipase and conjugated bile salts that yields mixed micelles and size of these 0 0 micelle are 30 A to 100 A which become highly dispersed in the aqueous medium of intestinal lumen.

»They even solubilize the nonpolar dietary fatty acids like palmitic and stearic.

»In this form, the fatty acids and the monoglycerides are readily brought into contact with the microvilli.

»Bile salt secretion is a limiting factor for fat digestion, not lipase.

»Bile produced in liver which acts as natural emulsifier it is stored in gall bladder and produce mixed micelles and make fat miscible in water.

»Colipase plays important role in release of bile salts in response to the quantity and type of dietary fats.

»Due to fast growth rate and production stress, the need of present birds is very high and the endogenic secretion of lipase, and bile is not sufficient hence emulsifier supplied externally through feed plays a major role in digestion and absorption of dietary fats and lipids.

»Conventional emulsifier forms lager radii, with use of these modern and efficient emulsifier there is formation of micelles with smaller radii thus get more surface area and are efficiently absorbed by the intestine due to their size.

»Phospholipids and lysophospholipids are class of emulsifiers which acts as surfactant which reduces surface tension between two immiscible liquids like water and fat and make them miscible.

»As the gut environment is more hydrophilic the modern emulsifiers should be more hydrophilic and less hydrophobice.

»It is ability of an emulsifier that can balance lipophilic and hydrophilic states.

»When small amount of water to be mixed in fat, you need an emulsifier of lower HLB number.

»Contrary to that when small amount of fat to be mixed with high amount of water, you need an emulsifier with higher HLB number.

»Intestine being an aqueous medium, and fat content in feed is not more than 5%, you need to use an emulsifier with higher HLB number.

»The concentration of emulsifier molecules required to form a micelle is called the “critical micellar concentration”

»Critical micelle concentration was determined using conductance and fluorescence method. Effect of low concentration of pyrene was checked on the Cmc of SDS conductometrically.

This trial was conducted in a reputed institution in India, who are providing scientific trials since August 2012 with a team of highly reputed veterinarians.

The present study was designed with the hypothesis that dietary supplementation of LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE along with 2 major global competitors to the diet of male broiler chickens with AME compromised by 80 kcal/kg will be able to spare this amount of energy from the other dietary components to achieve comparable performances and carcass traits as that may be possible by the nutrient sufficient diet

»To study the effects of dietary supplementation of LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE in comparison with other nutritional emulsifier on performance traits of male broiler chickens fed with diets compromised in terms of AME by 80 kcal/kg across the stages as per table no. 1.

»To study the effects of dietary supplementation of LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE in comparison with other nutritional emulsifier on gross carcass traits.

»Ability of emulsifier in absorbing saturated lipid profile efficiently.

»The experiment was conducted with a flock of 560 male Ross 308 (AP-95) chicks which were put on test for a period of 42 days.

»Distribution of the chicks into the 7 different treatment groups and into the pens within a group was done following a completely randomized design.

»The litter was composed of wood shavings and paddy straw. Each of the pens measured 1.2 m x 1.2 m and there were 8 such replicate pens under a single treatment group each consisting of 10 chicks (n = 80 per treatment).

»To study the effects of dietary supplementation of LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE in comparison with other nutritional emulsifier on performance traits of male broiler chickens fed with diets compromised in terms of AME by 80 kcal/kg across the stages as per table no. 1.

»Crumble feed was provided for Broiler prestarter and broiler starter diets and pellets for broiler finisher stage with a fatty acid profile containing unsaturated to saturated fatty acid ratio of 40:60 which is not an easy task for the birds to absorb.

»Lighting program was as per the breed specifications. Room temperature was maintained with the help of artificial brooders during the first 10 days of the experiment and then it was allowed to vary with the environmental temperature.

»Vaccination and medication schedule was carried out as per the recommendations of the breeder.

»Vitamin premix, trace mineral mixture was used as per the breed recommendation and phytase containing Butiauxella with 5000 FTU/kg was used.

»Body weight (BW) was recorded pen-wise at weekly intervals on the same time of a day without any fasting (0800 hours). A measured quantity of the feed was offered to each of the pens every day in two equal divisions and the weekly cumulative feed intake (FI) was calculated by subtracting the quantity of feed left in each pen from the total quantity offered during the said period

»Average cumulative body weight gain and cumulative daily feed intake were calculated for the respective feeding periods which corresponded to 1-10 d, 11-24 d, 25-42 d and 1-42 d.

»Mortality was recorded as and when it happened, and the weight of the dead birds was recorded to adjust the FCR data accordingly

»Overall liveability was calculated for the cumulative period of 1-42 d and European Productivity Index (EPI) was calculated as per the formula

»At 42 d, 8 birds from each treatment group were selected randomly (by taking care that the selection is distributed evenly over all the replications) and killed humanely by mechanical stunning followed by exsanguination.

»Hot carcass weight was recorded followed by scalding at 55°C, defeathering and evisceration.

»Eviscerated carcass weight was recorded

»Internal organs (liver, heart, kidneys, gizzard, and abdominal fat pad were separated and their weights were expressed relative to live weight.

»Yields of breast, thighs and drumsticks was measured and expressed relative to dressed weight.

»The parameters related to gross carcass traits viz., slaughter weight (SW), the meat yield and the weights of commercial cuts viz., that of the breast, legs, and thighs relative to the dressed weight were similar across the treatment groups (Table 3).

» Breast meat yield was highest in NC+LF 250, whereas leg weight was highest in negative control, thighs weight was highest in negative control, but overall yield was highest in NC+EF 250.

»Only the hot carcass weight (HCW) was found significantly higher in NC+EF 200 control from rest of the treatment groups.

» Weights of liver, heart, and fat pad relative to BW were similar across the treatment groups except that of the gizzard which was highest in the NC+LF 200 control and lowest in PC and NC groups compared to the rest of the treatments group.

» Fat pas was lowest in NC+LF 250 control which was clear indicative of efficient clearance of visceral fat and converting the AME into muscle weight. Other controls which were efficient in converting visceral fat were NC+LF 200 and NC+EF 250.

»Both the test products LIPIGEST FORTE (Combination of nutritional and synthetic ingredients) and EMULSIFORTE (Synthetic ingredients) were found more efficient than the two major global emulsifier brands.

»LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE are with higher HLB ratio i.e. ~ 18 and with lower critical micellar concentration which makes them efficiently digest and absorb more saturated fatty acid profile which is rather difficult to digest and absorb for regular emulsifier.

»Based on the performance of the experimental broiler chickens we could conclude that the diets supplemented with LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE can sustain even more energy deficiency.

»LIPIGEST FORTE and EMULSIFORTE were able to digest fatty acid profile containing unsaturated to saturated ratio of 60:40 which is highly appreciable.