Managing Dietary Energy Intake by Broiler Chickens to Reduce Production Costs and Improve Product Quality

Feeding constitutes the highest variable cost in poultry production, accounting for at least 60% of such costs, especially in an intensive rearing system. Energy intake is an essential factor in broiler production because of its involvement in growth rate, carcass quality as well as its role in the development of certain metabolic diseases. Dietary energy is supplied in broiler nutrition through different feed resources. Dietary energy content strongly regulates feed consumption, and energy is the most expensive item in poultry diets. At the same time, excess energy intake may result in an increased fat deposition, which affects meat quality and consumer health. This chapter explores the implication of imbalance in energy intake, possible nutritional strategies to restrict energy intake without reducing performance and hence improving meat quality

Assessment of Mycoflora of Poultry Feed Raw Materials

Abstract: The study was carried out to identify the common moulds growing in the selected feed raw materials in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. Fifty-four bulk samples were derived from 162 bags of 6 different raw materials, which included local fish meal (LFM), soybean meal (SBM), groundnut cake (GNC), palm kernel cake (PKC), brewers dried grain (BDG) and maize (MZ). The samples were collected during the rainy season months of June, July and August. The common moulds isolated from these samples were Mucor spp., Aspergillus spp., Yeast spp., Bacteria spp and Rhizopus spp. More fungal organisms were isolated in the month of July although Aspergillus spp was not isolated during the month. Local fishmeal, palm kernel cake, and brewers dried grain had the highest isolates of three organisms each with the prevalence ranging from 13.64 to 18.18%. Soybean meal, maize and groundnut cake on the other hand returned between one and two isolates. The present result showed that untreated feed raw materials are important vehicles for introduction of fungal organisms into poultry feed. It is therefore, advised to routinely treat such feed raw materials with fungal growth inhibitors in order to limit their growth since these organisms are capable of reducing the nutritional values of finished feeds