Novel Approach of The Wheat Bran Valorization to High Value Feed Stock for Broiler Chickens Nutrition

Abstract

Corn, wheat, and soybean meal are the primary ingredients of poultry diets [1]. However, its global price is increasing because of the limited world yield in covering the demands for both humans and livestock [2]. Minimizing the feed cost and improve in sustainability could be achieved through the use of wheat bran (WB), a by-product of the dry milling of wheat grains into flour [2]. Promising methods that can be applied to improve the nutritive quality of WB are extrusion and microbial fermentation [3]. The growth performance, weight of internal organs, caecal pH and short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) of broiler chickens (BC) fed diets containing WB replacing the wheat portion of the diets were investigated in this study. BC were assigned to 2 groups: control group (CON group) – was fed by basic compound feed. The 3% of basal were replaced by extruded (at 130 °C by two different speeds of the extruder screw (20 and 25 rpm)) and fermented by Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus paracasei WB in the diet of treatment group (WB group) and fed for 15 days of fattening. After 15 days, the broilers of WB group received basic compound feed. Results demonstrated that that the body weight (BW) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) of broilers was increased by 4% in supplementation of WB, compared with control group (p˃0.05). The weight of heart, liver and intestinal tract were increased in WB group (p<0.05). Compared to the control group, the WB group, showed significantly increased caecal propanoic, butanoic and pentanoic acids levels (p<0.05). In conclusion, an extruded and fermented WB replacement in the diet could ameliorate digestive processes and productivity in BC.