Detoxified castor meal in broiler chickens' diets

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) meal contain highly toxic substances. Three detoxification methods were evaluated for their effectiveness and their inclusion in diets for broilers. Five treatments (experimental diets) were evaluated: control diet based on corn and soybean meal (SM), non-detoxified castor meal (NDC), autoclaved castor meal (AC), chemically treated castor meal (ChC) and autoclave and chemical methods treated castor meal (AChC). Each treatment was randomly assigned to seven experimental units with 10 chickens each. The variables evaluated were: feed consumption (FC), feed conversion ratio (FCR), weight gain (WG), carcass yield (CY), breast yield (BY), leg to thigh yield (LTY), digestive system development, walking ability (WA), valgus-varus angulation (VVA), and latency to lie down (LLD). Chickens fed NDC and ChC had lower FC and WG (P<0.05). However, there was no difference among treatments for CA. There were differences among treatment (P<0.05) for WA and VVA, but there were not for LLD (P>0.05). The results showed that autoclave treatment (1 atm, 121 degrees C for 60 min) decreased toxicity in castor meal, since birds in the AC treatment had a similar productive behavior (P>0.05) to those in the control diet.