| Popis: |
Experiments have been carried out to study the effect of feeding broiler chickens with irradiated meat-bone meal (0, 5, 10, 25, 50 kGy), at a rate of 100 g/kg diet, on the apparent metabolizable energy (AME) values, using total collection of feed and excreta, during different age periods (14–21, 21–28, 28–35 and 35–42 days) and on the biological aspects of the digestive organs during the last 4 weeks of chickens’age (14–42 days). Results indicated that feeding of broiler chickens with diets containing irradiated meat-bone meal had insignificant effects on the AME values which amounted to an average of 18.6 MJ/kg diet during the four weeks of experimental periods. The AME values increased significantly by 0.36–0.99 MJ/kg diet during the late fourth age period compared with the other earlier three age periods. No significant difference was noticed in the AME values between the second and third experimental age periods. Feeding chickens with irradiated meat-bone meal for 4 weeks (14–42 day of age) had no significant effects on the relative weights of crop, proventriculus, gizzard, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, caeca, colon, pancreas and liver. Therefore, radiation sterilized meat-bone meal could be used as feedstuff in poultry diets without any deleterious effect on the diet energy utilization and biological aspects of chickens’digestive tract. |
Full Text from ScienceDirect