Multi-Carbohydrase Addition Into a Corn-Soybean Meal Diet Containing Wheat and Wheat By Products to Improve Growth Performance and Nutrient Digestibility of Broiler Chickens

SUMMARY Feed enzymes are used in poultry diets to enhance nutrient availability and thereby improve growth performances of the birds. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of dietary Multi-Carbohydrase (MC) supplementation on growth performance, blood metabolites, visceral organ weights, gut morphology, and nutrient digestibility in broiler chickens. A total of 168 one-day-old broiler chicks (47.5 ± 0.20 g) were randomly allocated into one of four dietary treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with 6 replications per treatment. Dietary treatments were as follows: (1) positive control (PC; energy sufficient, 3,200 ME, kcal/kg); (2) negative control (NC; energy deficient, 3,100 ME, kcal/kg); (3) PC with MC (MC; Superzyme-CS™; 0.05%); (4) NC with MC. Greater ADG (P = 0.022) was observed with the birds fed MC for the entire period (1–35 d) compared to birds fed a diet without MC. Birds fed the NC diet supplemented with MC showed improved FCR (P = 0.037) compared to birds fed the NC diet during the starter period (1–21 d). MC supplementation increased dry matter (P = 0.029), crude protein (P = 0.015), and energy digestibility (P = 0.015) of the birds compared to those fed a diet without MC on day 21. Moreover, birds fed a diet with MC had increased (P = 0.037) dry matter digestibility on day 35 compared to its counterpart, regardless of dietary energy level. Therefore, our study indicated that MC improved growth performance along with nutrient digestibility in broiler chickens fed corn soybean-meal-based diets containing wheat and wheat by-products from hatch to 35 d of age, regardless of dietary energy level.