Authors : Z. Ansari Pirsaraei, A.A. Saki, M. Kazemi Fard and H. Saleh
Abstract: The effect of diets with different levels of tallow on broiler breeder performance was evaluated in the study. About 3 different levels of fats (0.5, 1 and 1.5%) were added into a corn-soybean meal-based broiler breeder diet. The control diet included no supplementary fat. All diets were isocaloric and isonitrogenous. Feeding of experimental diets was initiated when broiler breeders (Ross 308) were 22 week old. Body weight of females was not affected by dietary treatments during the experimental period. Adding different levels of tallow to broiler breeder diet affected egg yolk weight (%), albumen weight (%) and yolk: albumen ratio (%) compared with controls (p<0.05). However, double-yolked egg, liveability, fertility (%), hatchability of fertile eggs (%), hatchability of total eggs set (%) and chick weight (g) were not affected by dietary treatments. Tallow supplementation to breeder diet significantly reduced hen-day egg production and egg weight (p<0.01) in comparison with controls. Female body weights were not affected by dietary fat addition through the entire experimental period. These data suggest that inclusion of different levels of tallow up to a level of 1.5% to the corn-soybean meal diet may affect egg production performance, fertility, egg weight, chick weight, hatching of eggs set and specific gravity without any adverse effect on body weight and settable egg characteristics.
Z. Ansari Pirsaraei, A.A. Saki, M. Kazemi Fard and H. Saleh, 2011. Effect of Dietary Tallow Level on Broiler Breeder Performance and Hatching Egg Characteristics. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 10: 1287-1291.