Nonruminant Nutrition: Health

The influence of including 20% whole corn, differing in grain hardness, on the performance, nutrient utilization and gut characteristics of broiler starters was investigated. The experimental design was a 3 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments evaluating corn hardness (hard, semi hard or soft) with diets based on ground corn or 20% of ground corn replaced by whole corn. The 3 corn cultivars were ground in hammer mill to pass through a 4 mm sieve and 6 diets were developed. Following mixing, all diets were cold pelleted. Each diet was fed to 6 replicate cages (8 birds per cage) from d 1 to 21 post hatch. Body weights and feed intake were recorded on a cage basis at weekly intervals. Mortality was recorded daily and data was corrected for mortality. Corn hardness and whole corn inclusion had no effect (P > 0.05) on the weight gain. Corn hardness had significant effect (P < 0.05) on feed intake and feed per gain, while these 2 parameters were unaffected (P > 0.05) by the inclusion of whole corn. Birds tended (P = 0.08) to consume more of the diets based on hard-corn than those based on soft-corn. Feed intake of diets based on semihard-corn did not differ (P > 0.05) from those based on hardor soft-corns. Feed per gain of birds fed diets based on soft-corn was lower (P > 0.05) than those fed diets based on semihard-corn. Feed per gain of birds fed diets based on hard-corn was similar (P > 0.05) to those fed diets based on hardand soft-corn. Inclusion of whole corn increased (P < 0.05) relative gizzard weights. The relative gizzard weights of birds fed hardand semihard corn diets were higher (P < 0.05) than those fed the soft corn diets. Dietary AME was not influenced by dietary treatments. Ileal nitrogen digestibility was influenced (P < 0.05) by hardness, with soft corn diets having higher digestibility. Overall, these results indicate that 20% of whole corn can be substituted for ground corn in broiler starter diets with no adverse effects on growth performance