Effect of dietary inclusion of graded levels of toasted guar meal on performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass traits, and serum parameters in commercial broiler chickens

An experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design to explore the replacement value of toasted guar meal (TGM) for soybean meal (SBM) in commercial broiler diets. Hypothesis was tested by including graded levels (0, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18% of diet) of TGM to replace maize-SBM on growth performance, apparent nutrient digestibility, carcass traits, and serum parameters. A total of six iso-nitrogenous and iso-caloric diets were prepared, and each diet was fed ad libitum to 12 replicates of five chicks each from 1 to 42 days of age. Results showed that inclusion of TGM up to 12% in broiler diets did not affect the body weight gain, feed efficiency, and energy digestibility. Feed intake, dry matter, nitrogen digestibility, and relative weights of ready-to-cook yields, breast muscle, abdominal fat, liver, and pancreas were not affected (P > 0.05) by incorporating TGM even up to 18% in broiler diets. Concentration of glucose, total protein, and triglyceride in serum was also not affected (P > 0.05), while serum total cholesterol concentration was found to be higher (P < 0.05) in broilers fed diets containing TGM as compared to those fed on 0% TGM diet. From the results, it was evident that TGM may be incorporated up to 12% in commercial broiler diets for better growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and carcass traits.