Effects of different sources of dietary fibre on growth performance and apparent digestibility in geese

Sixty 2-week-old female White Roman geese were used in the first experiment. In the second experiment, eighteen mature female geese were colostomized, placed in metabolism cages and used for a digestion study. The experimental diets for the six different treatments were supplemented with alfalfa meal, barley bran, rice hulls, or purified cellulose, lignin, or pectin, respectively as the major source of fibre. They were formulated into isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets with 90 g kg(-1) of crude fibre. Geese fed the pectin supplemented diet showed significantly less gain in body weight, due to lower feed intake than the other treatment groups (P < 0.05). The geese in the lignin group consumed significantly more feed than the others (P < 0.05), and gave the poorest feed conversion. Sources of dietary fibre, however, failed to influence the feed conversion significantly. The sources of dietary fibre did not influence the relative ratio of various volatile fatty acids (VFA). However they significantly influenced total VFA concentration of the caecal contents (P < 0.05), which was highest in the pectin group (97.07 mmol l(-1)). Digestibility of crude protein and gross energy were significantly lower in the diet with a lignin or a pectin supplement (P < 0.05).