Growth performance and digestibility comparison of 3 soybean oils and an animal-based highly saturated fat fed to broilers

Abstract

SUMMARY: To compare different soybean oil sources, a 42-d study was performed using 780 straight-run Ross 308 broilers randomly assigned to 1 of 5 dietary treatments. Dietary treatments consisted of: 1) a corn-soybean meal negative control (NC) diet containing 4.5% fine sand, or the NC diet with an additional 400 kcal of AME/kg from 4.5% fat inclusion of: 2) refined, bleached, and deodorized soy oil (RBD-SO, positive control); 3) animal-based lipid product containing a high percentage of saturated C16:0 and C18:0 fatty acids (SAF); 4) ExPress soy oil (ExP-SO); or 5) mechanically-processed soy oil (Mech-SO). RBD-SO, ExP-SO, and Mech-SO supplementation significantly impacted feed intake (FI), gain, and FCR when compared to broilers fed the SAF or NC diets, with ExP-SO having the most efficient overall FCR (P < 0.05). Lower FI and increased weight gain were consistently observed in RBD-SO, ExP-SO, and Mech-SO diets over all growing phases. Similarly, SO supplementation positively impacted dietary energy, with an increased average apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of 12.2% and AME of 11.4% in SO diets compared to SAF. A similar trend was observed in lipid energy determination, with the 3 SO products having 63.1% greater ATTD and AME compared to SAF. Although few differences were observed among SO diets with varying production methods, these results support the use of RBD-SO, ExP-SO, and Mech-SO products to promote performance and digestibility in comparison to SAF products.

Keywords

• broiler
• growth performance
• lipid digestibility
• soy oil