Amino acid digestibility and energy value of yellow-seeded rapeseed meal in broiler chicken performance

To determine the nutritive value of yellow-seeded rapeseed meal (YRSM), this protein source and soybean meal (SBM) were fed to 16 mature cockerels to determine nitrogen-corrected true metabolisable energy (TMEn) and amino acid digestibilities. TMEn of YRSM was 0.51 MJ/kg lower than SBM. Average amino acid digestibilities (14 Amino acids) were 89.47 and 84.90% for SBM and YRSM, respectively. Three hundred and four ten-day-old unsexed Arbor Acres broiler chickens were randomly assigned to four treatments with four replications per treatment and 19 birds per replication (pen). A diet based on corn-soybean meal was used as control and in other three treatments SBM was replaced with graded levels of YRSM at 150, 225 and 300 g/kg of diet. Feed intake, weight gain, feed to gain ratio and carcass characteristics of birds fed 300 g/kg YRSM were inferior to that of birds of other treatments. It was concluded that up to 225 g/kg YRSM can be incorporated in the broiler diet without any adverse effect.