Comparative Effects of Poultry Fat and Soybean Oil on Growth Performance in Broiler Chickens

Abstract

The research was done in order to compare the effects of poultry fat and soybean oil on the growth of broilers. Three dietary treatments including a control diet (CON) with no supplemental fat and a diet (SO) and diet (PF) supplemented with soybean oil or poultry fat were used randomly to allocate 360 one-day-old broiler chicks. The duration of the experiment was 42 days and it was subdivided into three phases; starter (1-14 days), grower (15-28 days) and finisher (29-42 days). Parameters of growth performance such as body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were measured. These findings indicated that, broilers that were fed diets with soybean oil and poultry fat had a much higher body weight gain and good feed ratio than that of the broilers that were fed the control diet (P < 0.05) at each of the growth phases. No significant effect of dietary treatments on the feed intake was found (P > 0.05). There were no observed significant differences between the soybean oil and poultry fat groups in most parameters of performance implying that the two sources of lipids are equally effective in supporting the growth of broilers. To conclude, dietary fat enhanced growth performance and feed efficiency in broilers chicken. Poultry fat exhibited similar effects with soybean oil and thus it can be concluded that it is a viable and economically viable alternative source of lipid in broiler diets.