Enzyme addition to corn and soybean meal-based diets: Effect on performance and carcass composition of guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) broilers

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated the benefits of supplementation of broiler chick diets based on corn and soybean meal with enzymes such as amylases and proteases. However, these benefits cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the commercial production of other species of domestic animals. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of diet fortification with Avizyme® (AV) on guinea broiler growth performance and processing yields. Six hundred guinea keets, randomly assigned to four treatments with 10 replications of 15 birds per pen, were reared under a three-phase feeding regime until market age (84 d) in a conventional poultry house. Treatments consisted of diets containing 0 (control), 0.025,0.050, and 0.075% of AV. Birds and feed were weighed weekly until 84 d of age to determine body weight (BW), feed intake (Fl), and feed conversion ratio (FCR). Dead and culled birds (CB) were remo ved and weighed daily. At 84 d, 50 birds per treatment were processed to evaluate carcass composition. The weights of carcass (CW), fat pad (FP) and carcass parts were obtained and yields were calculated as a percentage of live BW. No differences in BW, mortality, CB and CW were found among treatments. The yields of car cass, breast, drumsticks, thighs, and FP were similar for all dietary treatments evaluated. Results at 35, 63 and 84 d were mixed, but in general birds fed diets containing AV exhibited lower (P < 0.01) Fl and FCR than control birds. At 84 d, birds fed 0.025% AV diets had lower (P < 0.01) Fl and FCR than controls. These data suggest that supplementation with corn and soybean meal-based diets with at least 0.025% of AV improves FCR of guinea broilers without affecting BW at market age nor carcass composition.