Effect of chicken age on the nutritive value of diets with graded additions of full-fat sunflower seed

Abstract

1. Diets containing increasing amounts (80, 160 and 240 g/kg) of hulled full-fat sunflower seed (HFFSS) were evaluated for digestibility of nutrients and AMEn content with broiler chickens at 2 different ages (10 to 12 d and 27 to 29 d). 2. The age of chickens and dietary concentration of HFFSS had no major effect on the apparent digestibility of protein N and single amino acids. The differences observed were generally small and attained statistical significance only with glutamic acid, histidine, arginine, phenylalanine and isoleucine digestibilities. 3. The age effect on the apparent digestibility coefficients for crude fat and total fatty acids was dependent on the dietary concentration of HFFSS. Significant interactions between age and inclusion rate were observed for fat and individual fatty acids digestibilities. 4. AMEn (MJ/kg) increased significantly as the inclusion level of HFFSS increased. However, AMEn content was not affected by bird age or by the interaction between age and inclusion rate.