Enzyme Improvement of a Marginal Corn-Soybean Meal Diet

A large (8 treatments, 12 replicates, 12 chick/pen) experiment was conducted to investigate the additive effects of xylanase, amylase, protease and phytase in diets of broiler chickens. The birds were fed a corn-soybean meal diet formulated to be nutritionally marginal in metabolizable energy, calcium and phosphorus. The dietary treatments consisted of various combinations and levels of the enzyme treatments, together with a nutritional adequate control diet. Phytase and the cocktail of enzymes improved chick gains and feed efficiencies compared to the negative control diet. Body weight gain was increase 6-7 percent with the enzymes and 14 percent with the combination of phytase and enzymes. The researchers concluded that feeding phytase and a mixture of enzymes individually improved nutrient digestibility and performance of broilers fed nutritionally marginal corn-soybean diets. The study opens the possibility that fine-tuning enzyme additions to broiler diets may provide a cost-effective way to further improve broiler performance

Cowieson, A.J. and O. Adeola. 2005. Carbohydrases, protease, and phytase have an additive beneficial effect in nutritional marginal diets for broilers chick. Poultry Sci. 84 (12): 1860-1867.