• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.754-760
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• 2007

The effect of dehydrated food waste product (DFWP) inclusion in diets of Taiwan native chickens on the growth performance, carcass traits, clinical blood chemistry and nutrient digestibility was investigated with 320 male Taishi Native Chickens (Taishi No. 13). They were randomly allocated into four levels of DFWP inclusion (0, 5, 10, or 20%) treatment. Each treatment had 80 chickens with four replicates. At 15 weeks of age, 8 chickens were selected from each group for the nutrient digestibility trial. The results showed that body weight gain during the 0 to 4 week period decreased as the feed intake and feed conversion rate (FCR) increased linearly with increasing level of DFWP inclusion. During the 4 to 8 week period, greater body weight gains were recorded for the birds on the 5% DFWP inclusion level than for the control (p<0.05). During 8 to16 weeks, the feed intake and FCR increased linearly (p<0.05). Interestingly too, results of the carcass analysis showed that DFWP inclusion up to 20% in the diet significantly decreased the relative abdominal fat weight but increased the relative proventriculus and gizzard weights of the birds. However, other carcass parameters, meat quality and sensory scores were not significantly influenced by the dietary DFWP inclusion levels (p>0.05). Higher serum aspartate aminotransferase, ${\gamma}$-glutamyltransferase activity and crude protein digestibility, and lower gross energy digestibility were observed in the 20% DFWP group compared to the control (p<0.05). Dietary DFWP inclusion was inappropriate during the 0 to 4 week period. During 4 to 8 weeks, there was no adverse effect on chicken performance in the 20% group. There was no disadvantage on carcass properties and in the meat panel test. This result would not affect consumer determination.