Effects of dietary energy levels from Tra fish (Pangasius hypophthalmus) oil supplementation on dry matter intake, weight gain and FCR of local chicken under tropical conditions

Le Thanh Phuong and Nguyen Thiet¹

Vietswan Poultry Production Joint Stock Company, Binh Duong Province, Vietnam
nthiet@ctu.edu.vn
¹ College of Rural Development, Can Tho University, Can Tho City, Vietnam

Abstract

The aims of this study was to determine the effects of dietary energy levels from Tra fish (Pangasius hypophthalmus) oil supplementation on dry matter intake, weight gain and FCR of local chicken under tropical conditions. The experiment was a completely randomized design with 03 treatments and 04 replicates, and 10 birds per replicate. The treatments were the different dietary energy levels of 2,909; 3,000 and 3,100 kcal/kg DM, respectively. The experiment was carried out 5 weeks with one week for adaptation and four weeks for data collection. The results showed that Noi chickens exposed to high environmental temperature during daytime, particularly at 14:00 h. Dry matter intake (DMI) improved as dietary energy increased at third and fourth weeks (p<0.05). Similarly, weight gain tended to be higher in energy levels at 3000 kcal/kg DM and 3100 kcal/kg DM than in energy levels at 2909 kcal/kg DM (p = 0.07). In contrast, body weight and FCR were similar to among treatments. It concludes that dietary energy from 3,000 to 3,100 kcal/kg DM helps Noi chickens to mitigate the effects of heat stress and improve economic return via better FCR.

Key words: Noi chicken, fish oil, high environmental temperature, feed conversion

Introduction

In the Mekong delta, Vietnam poultry production exposed to high environmental temperature during hot season. This condition altered behavior and decreased feed intake, body weight and gain or increase FCR in broiler. Diet adjustments such as adding fat/oil, mineral, vitamin and improvement of housing conditions have been suggested as useful tools to overcome the negative effects of heat stress (Attia et al., 2011; Sanjeev Wasti et al., 2020). Tra fish oil has a large of quantity with 140,000 tons/year and could be the good energy to supplement for chicken in the Mekong delta, Vietnam. Additionally, fat/oil produces lower heat increments as compared to protein and carbohydrates (Musharaf and Latshaw, 1999). It suggested that fat/oil included in chicken diets to increase dietary energy and decrease the heat increments. Therefore, increasing dietary energy from Tra fish oil supplementation during high environmental temperature is beneficial for local chickens in Vietnam.

In Mekong delta, Noi chicken was popular and preferred to raise by farmers due to good adaptation with local climate and high quality meat. In addition, this chicken in recent years has been selected and created new generation with higher body weight and gain than previous generation (Chau Thanh Vu, 2018) and thus they also require higher nutritional requirement. According to Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Dong Hai (2014) found that dietary energy with 3,200 kcal/kg DM for raising Sao chicken from 09 to 14 old-week-age was highest economic return. Accordingly, Vietnam Poultry Association (2007) suggested that energy requirement of local broiler at 05 – 10 weeks of age and above 11 weeks of age were 2,850 – 2,900 kcal/kg and 2900 – 2950 kcal/kg respectively. In the current, there is a little information on energy requirement of Noi chicken raising under high environmental temperature. Therefore, the aims of this study was to determine the effects of dietary energy levels from Tra fish (Pangasius hypophthalmus) oil supplementation on dry matter intake, weight gain and FCR of local chicken under tropical conditions.

Materials and methods

Location and time

The experiment was conducted at Experimental farm, College of Rural Development, Can Tho university from March to April in 2019.

Experimental design

One hundred and twenty Noi chicken at 9 weeks of age (0.511±0.01 kg/bird) were received from Vietswan company. All chickens were vaccinated according to the broiler vaccination program as suggestion by Poultry Association Vietnam. The experiment was a completely randomized design with 03 treatments and 04 replicates, and 10 birds per replicate. The treatments were the different dietary energy levels of 2,909; 3,000 and 3,100 kcal/kg DM, respectively. For increasing dietary energy, this experiment was supplemented with Tra fish oil for 3,000 and 3,100 kcal/kg DM with 1.5% and 3.4% respectively (Table 1). The experiment was carried out 5 weeks with one week for adaptation and four weeks for data collection. The ingredients and chemical composition of experimental diets were shown in Table 1 and 2.

Data collection and management

The birds were fed twice daily at 08:00 and 14:00 h and had free access to water. At the beginning and end of the trial, all birds from each replication were weighed before feeding in the morning.

Feed offered and refusals were recorded daily in the morning starting from day 1^st to 28^th of the experiment. Feed and refusal samples were collected once a week and were divided into two parts: one half was immediately dried in the oven at 105°C until its weight remained constant to determine the dry matter, and the remaining samples were kept frozen at -20°C until chemical analysis. All feed samples were thawed and mixed thoroughly at the end of the experiment. Subsamples were dried at 65°C until the weight unchanged, then ground for CP and CF analysis according to AOAC (1990). The air temperature and humidity from the barn were recorded at 08:00 h, 14:00 h and 20:00 h once a week

Statistical analysis

The data are presented as the mean ± SEM. All data were analyzed with one-way ANOVA. The significance of pairwise comparisons was determined by Tukey posttest. Significance was declared at p<0.05.

Results and discussion

Heat stress is a condition where chickens cannot maintain the balance between body heat production and heat loss. Heat stress results from the interaction of some factors such as high air temperature, humidity, radian heat in which high environmental temperature is important role (Lara et al., 2013). This experiment showed that birds stayed in high air temperature (34 ⁰C) at 14:00 h as compared to other points of time (08:00 h or 20:00). Heat stress happen in poultry production when air temperature was higher than 25⁰C (Donkoh, 1989). Therefore, our experiment suggested that birds exposed to heat stress not only in daytime but also in nighttime (Table 3). Additionally, we also observed that birds from current experiment altered their behaviors such as increasing panting, spearing wings and covering the body surface in the litter during the hottest of daytime (14:00 h).

The dry matter intake did not differ among treatments at first and second weeks from this study, whereas DMI increased significantly (p <0.05) with increasing dietary energy levels at third and fourth weeks (Table 4), particularly between energy levels of 2909 kcal/kg DM and 3000 kcal/kg DM, 3100 kcal/kg DM. Higher DMI from energy levels at 3000 kcal/kg DM and 3100 kcal/kg DM was also higher energy intake from this study. This would be benefit for birds under high environmental temperature. Because fat supplementation in poultry diets not only helps to increase the nutrient utilization in the GI tract by lowing the rate of food passage (Mateos et al., 1982) but also helps to provide more the energy for heat dissipation via panting or improving the palatability of the diet (Suganya et al., 2015). Some studies found that fat supplementation in heat stress laying hens and broiler improved feed intake and performance (Daghir, 2008; Ghazalah et al., 2008). Other studies found that DMI decreased as increasing dietary energy levels in the diets of Korat chickens (Pratpot Maliwan et al., 2018) or Noi chickens (Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Van Thu, 2021). The different responses in DMI between this study and previous studies may be different in environmental temperature, photoperiod, stage of reproduction, levels of fat/oil supplementation in diet, diet palatability, availability of water as suggested by Ferket and Gernat (2006).

The experiment found that there were not influence dietary energy levels on body weight and FCR (Table 5, p>0.05). However, birds from energy levels at 3000 kcal/kg DM and 3100 kcal/kg DM tended to be higher weight gain than in energy level at 2909 kcal/kg DM (Table 5, p =0.07). Pratpot Maliwan et al. (2018) found that Korat chicken fed with increasing dietary energy remained unchanged body weight and weight gain, but FCR decreased. Attia and Hassan (2017) reported that adding 3% oil was more beneficial for broiler raised under high environmental condition than increasing protein concentration alone. Because this could attribute to increased feed, energy and protein intake which improved the growth and decreased FCR. According to Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Van Thu (2021) found that increasing levels of Tra fish oil in Noi chickens diet have increased final body weight and weight gain and followed by decreasing FCR and may be the same tendency from current study (Table 5, Figure 1 and 2). It indicates that dietary energy from 3,000 to 3,100 kcal/kg DM helps Noi chickens to mitigate the effects of heat stress.

There were curvilinear trends showing an increase in daily weight gain (Figure 1; R² = 1) and a reduction in feed conversion rate (Figure 2; R² = 1) as the dietary energy levels increased from current study. Similar finding was found for FCR as reported by Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Van Thu (2021) when Noi chickens supplemented with increasing Tra fish oil from 0 to 8% in diets.

Figure 1. Curvilinear trend in daily weight gain (g/head/day) as dietary energy levels from 2909 to 3100 kcal/kg DM from Tra fish oil supplementation	Figure 2. Curvilinear trend in feed conversion rate (FCR) as dietary energy levels from 2909 to 3100 kcal/kg DM from Tra fish oil supplementation

Conclusions

It concludes that dietary energy from 3,000 to 3,100 kcal/kg DM helps Noi chickens to mitigate the effects of heat stress and improve economic return via better FCR.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the manager of the Experimental farm at College of Rural Development, Can Tho university for supplying all the experiment materials and sincere gratitude thanks to Vietswan company for supporting Noi chickens and thanks to Mr. Son and Ms. Nhan for taking care of the experiment.

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