Fa. Igbasan et al., THE EFFECT OF PECTINASE AND ALPHA-GALACTOSIDASE SUPPLEMENTATION ON THE NUTRITIVE-VALUE OF PEAS FOR BROILER-CHICKENS, Canadian journal of animal science, 77(3), 1997, pp. 537-539
A total of 192 3-d-old male broiler chickens (Arbor Acres) were random
ly assigned to six dietary treatments with eight replicates of four bi
rds each per treatment. The treatments consisted of five levels (0, 50
, 75, 100 and 125 U kg(-1)) of pectinase enzyme and a combination of p
ectinase (50 U kg(-1)) and a-galactosidase (6250 U kg(-1)) enzymes. Th
e performance trial lasted for 2 wk. At the end of 2 wk, excreta were
collected on three diets to determine nitrogen-corrected apparent meta
bolizable energy (AME(n)). Growth rate, feed intake and feed conversio
n of birds fed pea diets supplemented with graded levels of pectinase
enzyme were not different from their counterparts fed a diet without p
ectinase supplementation; however, growth rate tended to be improved (
P = 0.11). Also, the AME(n) values of these diets were not affected. C
ompared with the control diet, addition of a combination of pectinase
and alpha-galactosidase tended to improve growth rate (P = 0.06).