Effects of dietary energy concentration on utilisation of energy by broiler chickens and on body composition determined by carcass analysis and predicted using tritium

Synopsis

Groups of 10 male, 10 female and 10 unsexed broiler chickens were given eight diets with energy concentrations ranging from 2.3 to 3.6 Mcal ME/kg in two experiments. Diets with a metabolisable energy concentration of about 3.1 Mcal/kg were found to be optimal for growth to a specified live‐weight. Carcass analysis gave much smaller values for nitrogen retention than did estimates from food intake and excreta. Retention measured by the latter method was influenced by the energy concentration of the diets.

Body composition was influenced by both dietary energy concentration and sex. In general, the energy and fat content of the carcass increased with increasing dietary energy concentration although there were overall differences in fat content between male and female chickens, and also between birds in experiment 1 and experiment 2.

Tritiated water was used to predict body water space enabling body composition to be estimated. Comparisons between determined body water content and tritiated water space showed that the former was overestimated, on average, by 18%. Residual standard deviation of prediction equations based on 240 chickens was 52.6 g for water space, 21.4 g for protein and 34.6 g for fat.