Insoluble Fibers Affected the Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Serum Lipid of Broiler Chickens Fed Wheat‐Based Diet

The current study was conducted to survey the influences of addition of alfalfa meal (AM), rice bran (RB) and wood shaving (WS) in wheat-based diets [contain soluble non starch polysaccharides (NSP)] on per-formance carcass characteristic and serum lipids of broilers from 11 to 42 d of age. Seven hundreds 10-d-old male Ross 308 chicks were placed into 35 pens and allocated to seven wheat-soybean meal-based die-tary treatments which were a control (CT) diet (without any fiber source) and six fiber-included diets con-sisting of three sources of fiber (AM, RB and WS) and two levels of fiber inclusion (3 and 6%) in a 3 × 2 factorial arrangement. According to the results, the average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), corrected-FCR (C-FCR) and crop, proventriculus, gizzard (relative full weights) and heart, abdominal fat, liver, breast and thigh (relative weights) and serum low density lipo-protein (LDL) were affected by different types of fibers (P<0.05). The inclusion of insoluble fibers in wheat-based diet improved ADG and FCR in broilers, so that, the highest amount of ADG and the lowest amount of C-FCR was related to 3% WS contained diet (P<0.05). The highest amount of gizzard weight was depended to 6% WS contained diet (P<0.05) and the lowest breast and thigh weight were also related to RB diets (P<0.05), but the aforementioned treatments had no effect on the different intestine sections weight (P>0.05). In general, the inclusion of 3 to 6% insoluble fibers, except for 6% WS, in wheat-based diet improved growth performance in broiler chickens.