Effects of simultaneous modulation of dietary metabolizable energy and crude protein on growth performance, nutrient utilization and carcass traits of broilers
Randomized feeding trial demonstrates that higher dietary energy and protein shorten time to market weight in broilers, suggesting accelerated growth without compromising carcass quality.
Key Points
To evaluate the effects of simultaneously adjusting dietary metabolizable energy and crude protein levels on broiler growth, nutrient digestibility, and carcass characteristics.
Randomized 900 1-day-old male Cobb 500 broilers into low, medium, and high dietary groups with 10 replicates of 30 birds per group.
Provided standard diets to the medium group while adjusting metabolizable energy by ±0.20 MJ/kg and crude protein by ±0.50 percentage points for the low and high groups.
Analyzed growth performance, cumulative intake, apparent total tract digestibility, and carcass traits using one-way ANOVA.
Broilers reached the 3.0 kg target market weight at 40 days in the high group, 42 days in the medium group, and 44 days in the low group.
Cumulative energy and protein intake, apparent total tract digestibility, and carcass traits exhibited no significant differences among treatments (p > 0.05).