The Effects of Wheat Pentosans in Broiler Diets

The inclusion of untreated rye or barley in poultry diets as a major ingredient causes growth depression. This is due to the high level of pentosans in rye (Antoniou and Marqurdt 1981) and the b-glucan content in barley (Gohl et al. 1977). It has been reported that some wheat cultivars grown in the eastern part of Australia show an unexpectedly low apparent metabolisable energy (AME) (~13 MJ/kg DM) when used as the main energy source in broiler diets (Mollah et al. 1983). Subsequent studies showed that starch digestibility of broiler diets containing low-ME wheats was significantly depressed (Rage1 et al. 1987). This study wasconducted to examine the anti-nutritive activities of wheat pentosans in broiler diets.