Digestibility studies in broiler chickens: Influence of genotype, age, sex and method of determination

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Abstract
1. The influences of genotype, age and sex on droppings digestibility coefficients of a compound food were studied using male and female broiler chickens of three different genotypes at 2, 4 and 6 weeks of age. 2. Because the traditional method of determination of droppings digestibility coefficients of nitrogen may lead to systematic errors in estimating the feeding value of foodstuffs, a method is proposed to determine the ileal digestibility coefficients. The ileal method is compared with the droppings method for a mixed food and for two foodstuffs: wheat and solvent‐extracted soyabean meal. 3. Birds selected for efficient food conversion showed distinctly higher digestibility coefficients for all nutrients than birds selected for high growth potential or birds from a commercial strain. 4. The influence of age on digestibility coefficients was not consistent. 5. Female birds showed digestibility coefficients which were, in general, 3% higher than those of male chickens. 6. Interactions between genotype and sex and between genotype and age for energy metabolisability were the only interactions observed for digestibility measurements. 7. The method of determination influenced the amino acid digestibility coefficients of the mixed food and the relative feeding values of wheat and soyabean meal. 8. It is important to use well defined animals (genotype, sex, age) in evaluating foodstuffs. 9. The preferred method for determination of digestibility coefficients of nitrogen and amino acids is based on ileal sampling, although the differences in amino acid digestibility coefficients were small between methods.

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