Effects of Mixing Broiler Litter with Wheat Straw Before Deep-Stacking and Alkaline Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment on Feed Intake, Digestibility and Performance in Mature Wethers

Abstract

Mandebvu, P., Goetsch, A.L., Kellogg, D.W., Park, K.K., Kouakou, B., Wang, Z., Galloway, D. L., Sr., Patil, A.R. and Johnson, Z.B. 1996. Effects of mixing broiler litter with wheat straw before deep-stacking and alkaline hydrogen peroxide treatment on feed intake, digestibility and performance in mature wethers. J. Appl. Anim. Res., 9: 153–174

Mature wethers (32, 17 mo of age and 41±1.3 kg body weight) were used, in an 84-d experiment to determine effects on feed intake, digestibility and performance of substituting deep-stacked broiler litter for wheat straw, alkaline hydrogen peroxide (HP) treatment of litter and (or) straw and stacking of litter separately vs mixed with straw. Diets were offered once daily and were comprised primarily of straw (S), straw treated with HP (TS), straw plus stacked litter (1:1, dry matter; S+L), HP-treated straw plus stacked litter (TS+L), straw plus litter treated with HP before stacking (S+TL), HP-treated straw plus litter treated with HP before deep-stacking (TS+TL), straw mixed with litter before stacking (SL) and straw mixed with litter then treated with HP before stacking (TSL). Straw and untreated litter (after deep-stacking) were 5 and 21% ash, 87 and 44% ash-free neutral detergent fiber, 6 and 33% crude protein and 12 and 8% acid detergent lignin, respectively. Straw diets (S and TS) were supplemented (dry matter) with soybean meal and urea (0.3 and 0.029% of body weight, respectively) and lasalocid (1 mg/kg body weight) was added to all diets. Over the 84-d period, organic matter intake was 0.81, 1.02, 0.77, 0.98, 0.79, 0.75, 0.83 and 1.00 kg/d (SE 0.078) and daily body weight change was −65, 9, −52, 5, −22, −53, −46 and −16 g/d (SE 18.3) for S, TS, S+L, TS+L, S+TL, TS+TL, SL and TSL, respectively. During wk 5, organic matter digestibility was 48.1, 58.5, 39.1, 60.0, 51.7, 62.3, 49.2 and 54.7% (SE 1.79) and neutral detergent fiber digestibility was 46.7, 60.6, 41.2, 66.6, 52.9, 68.2, 51.6 and 57.6% (SE 2.64) for S, TS, S+L, TS+L, S+TL, TS+TL, SL and TSL, respectively. In conclusion, when straw was supplemented with nitrogen, partial substitution with litter did not improve feed intake or change in body weight of mature wethers regardless of HP treatment or time of feedstuff mixing.

Key words:

• Broiler litter
• chemical treatment
• feed intake
• digestibility
• performance