Effect of β‐glucosidase on the meat quality and digestibility in broilers
2012
Qian, L. C. | Sun, J. Y. | Fu, S. J.
This study investigated the effects of supplementary β‐glucosidase on the carcass composition, meat quality, weight of digestive organ and apparent digestibility in male broilers. Two hundred and forty male, 1‐day avine broiler chicks were randomly allocated into four treatment groups and fed with corn–soya bean meal supplemented with 0 (control), 0.6, 1.2 and 1.8 U/g of β‐glucosidase respectively. The results showed that there were no significant differences (p > 0.05) among groups in carcass composition (percentages of eviscerated yield, half‐eviscerated yield, muscle yield of breast and leg). However, adding 0.6 U/g β‐glucosidase to the diet not only altered the meat quality by decreasing the drip loss ratio (p < 0.05) and relative lightness (L*) value (p < 0.01), increasing relative redness (a*) value (p < 0.01), but also significantly decreased the pancreas to body weight ratio (p < 0.05), however, with little effect on liver, proventriculus and gizzard to body weight ratio (p > 0.05). The length and width of duodenum villus were not affected by the addition of β‐glucosidase, but the coefficients of total tract apparent digestibility of protein and fat increased by 9.02% (p < 0.05) and 7.40% (p < 0.01) respectively; the parameters of ash were not affected by β‐glucosidase addition (p < 0.05). This study provided valuable information for evaluation of the effect of supplementary β‐glucosidase on the meat quality and digestibility of broilers.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by National Agricultural Library