EFFECT OF BREWER'S DRIED GRAIN AND YEAST CULTURE ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS TRAITS OF BROILER CHICKS

The present study was performed to investigate the effect of dietary brewers dried grain (BDG) and 2 levels of yeast culture (YC) (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) on growth performance carcass traits some dietary measurements and economical efficiency of broiler chicks during 1-6 weeks of age under Egyptian conditions (15 October - 30 November 2014) where the ambient temperature ranged between 20 to 26 Cº. A factorial design (5 × 2) arrangement was performed included five levels of BDG (0, 3, 6, 9 and 12%) and two levels of YC (0 and 0.5 g \kg diet). The analysis of variance of the obtained   results show a significant (P≤0.01) effect on live body weight (LBW) at 6 weeks of age, body weight gain (BWG) through 3-6 weeks of age and during 1-6 weeks of age. There was a significant linear reduction in LBW and BWG as the BDG increased (P≤ 0.01). There is a significant difference   (P≤0.05) between diet containing 12% BDG and other diets for LBW and body weight gain during the whole experimental period (1-6) weeks of age. This diet have the lowest LBW and BWG. It could be noticed that, LBW and BWG during all different experimental periods were not significantly affected by different levels of YC. Also, interactions between BDG and YC levels were not significant (P≤0.05) on LBW at 6 weeks of age and BWG through (1-6) weeks of age. Results obtained in this study showed that, levels of BDG did not affect (P≤0.05) average feed consumption through all different experimental periods whereas, the feed gain ratio (FCR) significantly increased (P≤0.05) by increasing levels of BDG to 12%. The best value of FCR was 2.13 in the group of birds fed diet with 9% BDG. The present results did not show any significant effect on all carcass characteristics studied due to different dietary BDG and YC levels or their interactions, except giblets percentage, which was significantly (P≤0.01) affected by BDG levels and the interaction between BDG and YC levels. In conclusion, the results of this study indicated that, taking body weight gain, feed conversion and economical efficiency, the dietary level of 9% BDG with or without yeast culture supplementation may be the best percentage till 6 weeks of age. While yeast culture did not affect on the performance and carcass traits.