Replacement of Normal Maize with Quality Protein Maize on Performance, Immune Response and Carcass Characteristics of Broiler Chickens

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary replacement of normal maize (NM) with quality protein maize (QPM) on performance, immune response and carcass characteristics of broiler (Krishibro) chickens. Six experimental diets were prepared separately for starter and finisher phases. Diet 1 was a control diet formulated with NM and soybean meal. In diets 2-5, the NM was replaced with QPM at 25, 50, 75 and 100%, respectively. Diet 6 was the same as the control diet, but supplemented with synthetic lysine similar to the industry standard. Each test diet was fed to 8 replicates, each of 5 chicks, reared in stainless steel battery brooders. The AME content of QPM (3382 kcal/kg) was similar to that of NM (3,352 kcal/kg), but protein (9.91 vs. 8.94%), lysine (0.40 vs. 0.26%) and tryptophan (0.09 vs. 0.07%) contents of QPM were higher than NM. Dietary replacement of NM with 50% QPM significantly (p<0.05) improved body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, humoral immune response, relative bursa weight, and breast muscle yield and lowered abdominal fat content. No further improvement in these parameters was recorded by increasing the level of replacement of NM with QPM to either 75% or 100%. Further, the improvement noticed in the 50% QPM group was similar to the group fed the NM diet with lysine supplementation, and thus dietary replacement of NM with QPM at 50% did not need extra synthetic lysine supplementation. It is concluded that dietary replacement of NM with QPM at the 50% level resulted in optimum performance, higher breast muscle yield and higher immune response in broiler chickens.