Sorghum surpasses wheat as a feed grain for broiler chickens following dietary crude protein reductions

Table 6 The effects of dietary treatments on apparent digestibility coefficients and disappearance rates of starch and protein (N) in distal jejunum (DJ) and distal ileum (DI) and starch:protein disappearance rate ratios at 35 d post-hatch

Treatment		Digestibility of starch		Digestibility of protein N		Disappearance rates of starch, g/bird/d		Disappearance rates of protein, g/bird/d		Disappearance rate ratio of starch:protein
CP	Grain	DJ	DI	DJ	DI	DJ	DI	DJ	DI	DJ	DI
205	Wheat	0.914^a	0.958^a	0.653	0.796	52.27^bc	53.94	19.30	23.54	2.74^b	2.30
205	Sorghum	0.819^b	0.916^b	0.582	0.756	49.54^c	54.29	17.47	22.76	2.87^b	2.41
175	Wheat	0.763^c	0.915^b	0.727	0.787	55.24^ab	63.82	17.87	19.58	3.02^b	3.28
175	Sorghum	0.837^b	0.922^ab	0.594	0.728	57.31^a	61.76	15.63	19.08	3.75^a	3.32
SEM		0.0135	0.0107	0.0223	0.0782	0.800	0.764	0.637	0.548	0.110	0.100
Main effects: CP
205		0.866	0.937	0.617	0.776	50.90	54.12^b	18.38^a	23.15^a	2.80	2.35^b
175		0.800	0.918	0.660	0.758	56.28	62.79^a	16.75^b	19.33^b	3.39	3.33^a
Main effects: Grain
Wheat		0.839	0.937	0.690^a	0.792^a	57.75	58.88	18.59^a	21.56	2.88	2.79
Sorghum		0.828	0.919	0.588^b	0.742^b	53.42	58.02	16.55^b	20.92	3.31	2.96
Significance (P)
Crude protein (CP)		< 0.001	0.088	0.065	0.340	< 0.001	< 0.001	0.015	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001
Feed grain (FG)		0.424	0.101	< 0.001	0.010	0.680	0.256	0.002	0.246	< 0.001	0.370
CP × FG interaction		< 0.001	0.031	0.181	0.616	0.005	0.137	0.750	0.804	0.007	0.642

Means within columns not sharing a similar superscript are significantly different at the 5% level of probability
SEM Standard error of mean

ISSN: 2049-1891