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Growth performance response in tom turkeys fed conventional diet supplemented with monoglycerides of short and medium chain fatty acids

Sokale, O., A. Barri, J. Firman and N. Tillman
2023

This study aimed to investigate the effects of butyric, caprylic, and capric monoglycerides (MG) on the growth performance of male turkeys when supplemented at 0, 300, 600, 900, 1200, 1500 and 1800 g/MT feed. A total of 840 male Hybrid Converters turkeys (15 birds × 8 pens/treatment) were randomly allotted to the 7 dietary treatments (Trt) in a randomized complete block design. A corn-soybean meal based diet with fixed minimal amount of meat meal and DDGS per phase was formulated and fed in 6 phases (d0-21, d21-42, d42-63, d63-84, d84-105, and d105-119). All diets were formulated to meet the breeder’s recommendations and to simulate a standard US turkey diet. Feed intake (FI) and body weight (BW) data were collected for each phase during the 17-weeks study. Body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion rate adjust for chick days (FCRa) were calculated. The experimental unit was the pen and data were analyzed using mixed model of JMP®. Quadratic polynomial (QP) model was used to fit the titrated levels for both Trt LSMeans and pen means. The level which maximized BW or minimized FCRa from the QP model are reported. Only the responses with significant Goodness of fit (P<0.05) were reported, which were the supplementation of MG at 0 – 1800 g/MT during 0-3 weeks period. The results suggested that to maximize BWG from 0-3 weeks, it would require 624 g/MT using Trt LSMeans and 644 g/MT using pen means while FCRa was minimized at 482 g/MT using Trt LSMeans and 478 g/MT using pen means. Although, One-Way ANOVA showed no significant differences among 7 treatments for BWG and FCRa for any phase, consistent numerical improvement in BWG and coefficient of Variation (CV) were observed for all phases in comparison to the diets with no MG. The improvement in BWG at 300 g/MT ranged from 1.42 – 4.93 %, while the CV improvement at the same level ranged from 18 – 70 %.

This trial showed that feeding MG from 478 – 644 g/MT to male turkeys during 0 – 3 weeks improved BWG and FCRa and, while feeding at least 300 g/MT across phases up to 119 days showed consistent improvement in BWG and weight uniformity.