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Effect of pellet quality and biochar litter amendment on male turkey performance
- Source :
- Poultry Science, Vol 100, Iss 4, Pp 101002-(2021), Poultry Science
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Elsevier, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Bedding (litter) is essential to poultry performance and health and can have an environmental impact after use in the poultry facility such as a soil amendment or as an alternative energy source. Pine shavings are the most common bedding used for turkey production. However, the increase in its price and its increasing scarcity in some areas have created new research opportunities for reusing litter as bedding. Improvement in feed pellet quality has been reported to improve poultry performance. However, the reports for turkeys are limited and dated. This study's objective was to determine how the improvement of feed pellet quality and the use of biochar added to a combination of used turkey brooder house litter and Miscanthus grass as bedding affects turkey performance, small intestine morphology, and ammonia production. Nicolas Select (Aviagen Turkeys, Lewisburg, WV) male poults (816) were randomly assigned to 48 concrete litter floor pens on the day of hatch. The experiment used a completely randomized block design with a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement of treatments: 2 levels of fines in the feed and 4 bedding treatments. The bedding treatments were a constant level of used turkey brooder house litter combined with a varying combination of biochar and Miscanthus grass. Turkey's body weight (BW), body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were determined. Differences in treatment means were considered to be statistically significant at P ≤ 0.05 using a mixed model in SAS 9.4. Turkeys fed the feed with improved pellet quality had a higher BW from 3 to 17 wk (17.0 ± 0.1 kg) than turkeys fed an increased abundance of fines (16.72 ± 0.1 kg). Turkeys fed feed with increased pellet quality had a lower FI (45.6 vs. 48.1 ± 0.4 kg) and improved FCR (2.20 vs. 2.31 ± 0.01) from 0 to 20 wk. Litter treatment with 20% biochar resulted in higher BW at 20 wk (20.91 ± 0.16 kg) because of increased BWG at 11 wk over the rest of the biochar levels (3.7 ± 0.1 kg). Strategies to reduce the abundance of fines in feed through feed formulation, feed manufacturing, feed transport, and in-house feed management should be considered to increase male turkeys' performance. There may be opportunities to use biochar as a litter amendment to improve turkey health and performance.
- Subjects :
- Litter (animal)
Male
Turkeys
MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION
Randomized block design
Amendment
Feed conversion ratio
03 medical and health sciences
Random Allocation
Animal science
feed-fine
Floors and Floorcoverings
Biochar
Pellet
Animals
turkey
biochar
030304 developmental biology
lcsh:SF1-1100
0303 health sciences
biology
Body Weight
0402 animal and dairy science
pellet quality
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
General Medicine
Miscanthus
biology.organism_classification
040201 dairy & animal science
miscanthus grass
Charcoal
Animal Science and Zoology
lcsh:Animal culture
Energy source
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00325791
- Volume :
- 100
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Poultry Science
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....a730e69dd4fc2f2dc29c4372f5f328f9