Citation of this paper

Effects of dietary supplementation levels of coconut oil in crossbred Noi chicken on nutrient intake, growth performance, carcass values

Nguyen Thi Kim Dong and Nguyen Van Thu¹

College of Applied Biology, Tay Do University, Vietnam
ntkdong@ctu.edu.vn
¹ College of Agriculture, Can Tho University, Vietnam

Abstract

A study of effects of coconut oil supplementation in diets of Noi crossbred chicken on growth and meat production was done at an experimental animal farm in Binh Thuy district and Department of Animal Science, Can Tho University of Vietnam. It was a completely randomized design with five treatments and three replicates on 150 Noi crossbred chicken at 28 days of age, body weight average of 296 ± 3.04 g/bird. There were 10 chicken per each experimental unit with the same body weight. The treatments were coconut oil (CO) supplementation at 5 different levels of 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8% of the concentrate basal diets (CO0, CO2, CO4, CO6 and CO8). The results showed that when supplementing CO in the diets decreased the intakes of DM, OM and CP, while EE and ME consumptions of birds significantly increased (P<0.05). The highest daily weight gain was found for the CO6 treatment. Carcass, breast meat and thigh meat weights in the diets supplemented CO were significantly higher (P<0.05) compared to those in the CO0 one.

It was concluded that coconut oil could be used as energy supplement source in the diets for growing Noi crossbred chicken. At the level of 6% coconut oil supplementation in the basal concentrate diet of the chicken improved growth performance and carcass value.

Key words: crossbred Noi chicken, coconut oil, growth rate and carcass performance

Introduction

Local chicken production is characteristics by smallholders and plays a significant contribution to human livelihood and food security (Gondwe, 2004). They are kept in scavenging backyard, being dual-purpose animals, supplying meat and eggs. In the Mekong delta of Vietnam, there are some local chicken strains named as Tau Vang, Ta and Noi, and crosses unidentified in which Noi chicken and crossbred chicken (Noi x local chicken) are the most common and occupies up 70% of total (Nguyen Minh Dung and Huynh Hong Hai, 2007).

In the Mekong delta, especially Ben Tre province had the coconut area over 53,000 ha in 2020 and reaches an output of 500 million coconuts per year. With this strategy, the coconut processing industry has been developed strongly, making an effective contribution to the socio-economic development of the province, especially a large amount of coconut oil (CO) produced. CO is a highly saturated oil (about 90%), and 60% of its total fatty acid composition are medium-chain fatty acid (MCFA) with a chain length of 6 to 12 carbon atoms (Bhatnagar et al., 2009), which are absorbed directly into the portal circulation without re-esterification in intestinal cells (Ferreira et al., 2012). The MCFA are partly independent of the carnitine transport mechanism into the mitochondria of the liver and are rapidly and exclusively oxidized for the production of energy (Rubin et al., 2000). Thus coconut oil could be an economical energy source for local chicken. The objectives of this study were to determine optimum level of coconut oil supplement on performance, carcass characteristics and economic returns in crossbred Noi chicken raised under the conditions of the Mekong delta of Vietnam for the useful recommendations to the producers.

Materials and methods

Location and time

The trial was conducted at the Experimental farm in Binh An village, Binh Thuy district, Can Tho city. The chemical analysis of feeds and refusals were done at the laboratory E205 of the Department of Animal sciences, College of Agriculture, Can Tho University, Vietnam from February to June in 2019.

Experimental animals and design

One day- old chicken were bought from Binh Minh Poultry Company in Dong Nai province. They were produced by male Noi chicken (Phu Yen province) and female local chicken (Dong Nai province). All birds were vaccinated H5N1, Newcastle and some other common diseases before starting in the trial.

One hundred fifty crossbred Noi chicken at 5 weeks of age (296 ± 0.58 g/bird) were allotted in a completely randomized design with 5 treatments and 3 replicates, and 10 birds per experimental unit balancing in sex (Fig. 1). The treatments were the coconut oil (CO) supplementation levels of 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8% to concentrate feed as a basal diet (corresponding to the CO0, CO2, CO4, CO6 and CO8 treatments, respectively).

The experimental time was lasted for 10 weeks and done in 2 periods including from 5 to 9 and 10 to 14 weeks of age. Feed ingredient composition of basal concentrate diet in experiments from 5 - 9 and 10 - 14 week periods were presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Feed ingredient composition of concentrate basal diet in the experiment from 5 -9 and 10-14 week periods (% DM)
Feed	5-9 week period	10-14 week period

Broken rice	46.1	42.9
Rice bran	27.3	27.8
Maize	2.00	9.48
Extracted soybean	12.6	9.84
Fish meal	12.0	9.98
Total	100	100
Vitamin- mineral premix provided at 0.3 % for all dietary treatment and contained vitamin A, 50,000 IU/100g; vitamin D₃, 80,000 IU/100g, vitamin E, 50 IU/100g; vitamin K, 0.1%; vitamin B1, 0.03%, vitamin B2, 0.2%, B12, 0.0006%; Calcium carbonate, 0.5%; Phosphorus, 0.05%; Zn, 1.6%; Cu, 0.32%; Mn, 2.56%; I, 0.032%; Co, 0.016%, Se, 0.0064%

Feeds for the experiment

All feed ingredients were bought in one occasion from feed store for throughout the experiment with the good storage. The concentrate was formulated and contained 11.7 MJ ME /kg DM for both 2 periods, 20.0 %CP and 18.0 %CP for the 5-9 week age period and 10-14 week age period. Coconut oil (CO) was bought from Thanh Vinh company in Ben Tre province, and finely mixed with the concentrate following experimental design before feeding. All feed ingredients were analyzed for chemical composition before carrying out the trial.

Table 2. Chemical composition and ME value of feed ingredients in experiment (% DM)
Item	Broken rice	Rice bran	Maize	Extracted soybean	Fish meal

DM	86.4	90.3	83.1	89.0	88.6
OM	98.7	91.4	98.3	93.7	79.2
CP	8.61	9.76	8.30	44.7	62.3
EE	2.30	9.72	4.36	10.3	8.14
CF	0.60	14.3	2.95	9.48	0.82
NDF	4.90	23.3	16.8	23.2	6.73
ADF	7.75	16.7	4.22	19.0	5.02
Ash	1.30	8.64	1.75	6.31	20.8
Lys	0.28	0.56	0.25	2.78	4.33
Met	0.20	0.27	0.17	0.57	1.45
Ca	0.06	0.17	0.22	0.28	5.11
P	0.24	1.65	0.30	0.56	2.81
ME (MJ/Kg DM)	13.9	7.55	13.9	14.0	10.1
DM: dry matter, OM: organic matter, CP: crude protein, EE: ether extraction, CF: crude fibre , NDF: neutral detergent fibre, ADF: acid detergent fibre, Ash: , Lys: lysine, Met: methionine, Ca: calcium, P: phosphor. ME: metabolizable energy (Janssen, 1989)

Table 3. Chemical composition of concentrate in two periods of experiment (% DM)
Item	Concentrate
Item	5-9 week period	10-14 week period

DM	88.1	88.2
OM	93.7	94.2
CP	19.9	17.8
EE	6.08	5.93
CF	5.53	5.53
NDF	12.7	13.1
ADF	11.2	10.7
Ash	6.28	5.83
Lys	1.16	1.01
Met	0.42	0.38
Ca	0.73	0.63
P	0.97	0.93
ME (MJ/kg)	11.7	11.7

Table 3 indicated that the content of DM, ME and other nutrients were similar between 2 basal diets in 2 periods, except for CP content being 20.0 %CP for the first period and 18.0 %CP for the second period, corresponding to experimental design.

Housing and management

House for birds was made by bamboo and palm leaves. Experimental birds were raised in pens with 6.0 m²/10 birds, which were made of wood and plastic net. Feeders and drinkers were put in each pen, cleaned daily every morning and chicken litters were removed weekly.

The birds were fed 3 times daily at 7.00, 13.00 and 17.00h and the diets offered to the treatments were weekly adjusted according to actual feed intakes, and water being freely available.

Measurements taken

- Daily intakes of feed and nutrients: feed and refusals were collected and weighed daily morning.

- Growth rate, feed conversion ratio and economic analysis: the birds were weekly weighed and the economic analysis was done by the current prices in VND.

- Carcass values: after finishing 4 birds per each experimental unit were slaughtered for the evaluation of carcasses. Body measurements of birds were described by Salomon (1996).

Chemical analyses

Feeds offered were analyzed for chemical compositions: DM, OM, CP, EE, CF, ash, calcium and phosphorus by standard AOAC methods (AOAC, 1990). NDF, and ADF analyses were also done, following the procedure of Van Soest et al. (1991) and ME was calculated by Janssen (1989). Representative samples of broken rice, rice bran, maize, fish meal and extracted soybean were analyzed for lysine and methionine (Procedure of 994.12, AOAC, 2000).

Statistical analysis

Data were analyzed by using General Linear Model (GLM) of Minitab 16.1.0 (Minitab, 2010) and the comparison of significant difference between two treatments was done by Tukey method of Minitab (2010).

Results and discussion

Daily feed and nutrient intakes

Daily feed and nutrient intakes of crossbred Noi chicken was showed in Table 4.

Table 4. Mean values of daily feed and nutrient intakes of crossbred Noi chicken of 2 periods (g DM/bird)
Item	Treatment					± SE	p
Item	CO0	CO2	CO4	CO6	CO8	± SE	p

Concentrate	61.9^a	61.2^ab	60.4^ab	59.0^ab	57.9^b	0.74	0.019
DM	54.6	54.0	53.5	52.8	51.6	0.65	0.062
OM	51.3	50.9	50.5	49.8	48.7	0.62	0.094
CP	10.2^a	9.85^ab	9.53^bc	9.19^cd	8.76^d	0.11	0.001
EE	3.27^e	4.39^d	5.48^c	6.51^b	7.44^a	0.07	0.001
CF	3.02^a	2.92^ab	2.84^bc	2.72^cd	2.60^d	0.04	0.001
Ash	3.28^a	3.17^ab	3.07^bc	2.96^cd	2.82^d	0.04	0.001
ME, MJ/bird	0.64^d	0.66^cd	0.69^bc	0.71^ab	0.72^a	0.01	0.001
Lys	0.58^a	0.56^ab	0.55^bc	0.52^cd	0.50^d	0.01	0.001
Met	0.23^a	0.21^a	0.20^ab	0.19^bc	0.18^c	0.00	0.001
Ca	0.37^a	0.35^ab	0.34^bc	0.33^cd	0.31^d	0.00	0.001
P	0.51^a	0.50^ab	0.48^bc	0.47^cd	0.45^d	0.01	0.001
^{a .b. c.,d} Mean values with different superscripts within the same row are different at P<0 05

The higher concentrate intake was found for the birds in the CO0 treatment, and lower values for those fed CO (P<0.05), possibly due to higher EE and ME intakes from CO supplement. The DM and OM intakes tended to reduce in the diets supplemented CO, but being not significantly different (P>0.05). The DM intakes in a present experiment are in ranges of 50.4 -53.3 g DM/bird; 54.5-55.0 g DM/bird of studies on Noi chicken reported by Pham Tan Nha (2019^b), Lam Thai Hung and Ly Thi Thu Lan (2020), respectively. The CP and CF intakes gradually decreased while the EE and ME values significantly increased with increasing CO supplement in the diets (P<0.05). The CP intake in a current trial is consisted with the findings of previous works on Noi chicken (8.25- 9.08 gCP/bird (Nguyen Thanh Nhan, 2012).

ME intake significantly increased (P<05) following the CO supplement, the highest values were found in the CO6 and CO8 treatments.

Growth performance and feed conversion ratio (FCR)

Table 5. Mean values of daily weight gain, final live weight and FCR of crossbred Noi chicken supplemented CO (g/bird)
Item	Treatment					± SE	p
Item	CO0	CO2	CO4	CO6	CO8	± SE	p

Initial live weight	295	294	293	296	296	0.58	0.91
Final live weight	1452^c	1494^bc	1555^ab	1621^a	1578^a	14.5	0.001
Daily weight gain	16.5^c	17.1^bc	18.0^ab	18.9^a	18.3^a	0.21	0.001
Feed conversion ratio	3.30^a	3.16^ab	2.98^bc	2.77^c	2.82^c	0.06	0.001
^{a .b. c} Mean values with different superscripts within the same row are different at P<0 05

Table 5 showed that daily weight gain of chicken from 5 to 14 weeks of age significantly increased corresponding to increasing CO levels in the treatments (P<0.05) with the highest values for the birds supplemented 6 and 8% CO in the diets. The DWGs in the current trial are in agreement with the findings (15.3-16.5 g; 14.8-18.3 g; 14.9-18.5 g) of studies on Noi chicken reported by Nguyen Thanh Nhan (2012), Pham Tan Nha (2019 ^a) and Lam Thai Hung and Ly Thi Thu Lan (2020), respectively. The final live weight at 14 weeks of age had similar tendency with DWG, with the lowest value in the CO0 treatment and the highest in the CO6 and CO8 treatments (P<0.05). These results are in a range of 1.355- 1.563 g/bird of Noi chicken stated by Bui Thi Phuong et al. (2019), but being higher than those of Noi chicken reported by Nguyen Van Quyen (2008) and Do Vo Anh Khoa et al. (2019) (1,277 g – 1,562 g; 1,260-1,375 g), respectively. Feed conversion rations were better (P<0.05) for the CO6 and CO8 treatments, as results of the higher daily weight gain. These values are consistent with the findings (2.90-3.21; 2.82-3.10) of previous works on Ri chicken and Noi chicken, reported by Nguyen Thi Quyen and Bui Thi Hoang Yen (2019) and Nguyen Thi Thuy (2019), respectively, but being slightly lower than those (3.21-3.53) found by Pham Tan Nha (2019^b).

In Fig 1 and 2 indicated that there were close relationships between DWG and FCR and % CO supplementation levels with y=-0.0429x² + 0.6129x+16.33 (R²=0.910) and y=-0.152x²+0.0061x+3.27 (R²=0.990), respectively.


Figure 1. Relationship of DWG (g/bird) and %CO supplementation in the chicken diets	Figure 2. Relationship of FCR and %CO supplementation in the chicken diets

Carcass characteristic of crossbred Noi chicken in the treatments

Table 6. Carcass values of crossbred Noi chicken supplemented CO in diets (g/bird)
Item	Treatment					± SE	p
Item	CO0	CO2	CO4	CO6	CO8	± SE	p

Slaughter weight	1468^d	1515^cd	1562^bc	1664^a	1614^ab	19.6	0.001
Carcass weight	857^c	900^bc	976^ab	1065^a	1027^a	20.4	0.001
%, Carcass	58.3	59.4	62.5	64.0	63.6	0.85	0.075
Breast weight	210^b	219^ab	240^ab	261^a	251^ab	11.1	0.042
Breast meat weight	169^c	185^bc	198^ab	212^a	205b^a	5.69	0.002
%, Breast meat	19.7	20.6	20.3	19.9	20.0	0.83	1.000
Thigh weight	295^b	316^b	345^ab	399^a	370^ab	15.1	0.005
Thigh meat weight	197^c	211^bc	241^ab	282^a	260^a	9.55	0.001
%, Thigh meat	23.0	23.4	24.7	26.5	25.3	1.23	0.556
^{a .b. c. d} Mean values with different superscripts within the same row are different at P<0 05

The slaughter weight, carcass weight, breast meat and thigh meat (Table 6) were the highest values for the CO6 treatment (P<0.05). There was no difference in breast and thigh proportion in the treatments without or with coconut oil supplement (P>0.05). The carcass percentage in our trial is slightly lower than the data (65.8 -68.5%) reported by Nguyen Thi Thuy (2018). The percentages of breast meat and thigh meat obtained are in agreement with the data (19.6-20.1%; 24.8-25.0%, respectively) from a study on Noi chicken of Nguyen Thanh Nhan (2012).

Table 7. Nutrient compositions (% fresh form) of breast meat of crossbred Noi chicken in the treatments
Item	Treatment					± SE	p
Item	CO0	CO2	CO4	CO6	CO8	± SE	p

DM	26.3	26.4	26.4	26.5	27.0	0.38	0.70
OM	98.8	99	99	98.9	98.8	0.1	0.27
CP	20.3	19.9	20.7	20.4	20.8	0.53	0.78
EE	3.49	3.55	3.52	3.41	3.6	0.39	0.99
Ash	1.19	1.01	0.96	1.11	1.25	0.1	0.27

There were no significant differences in the nutrient composition of the breast muscle from the birds among five dietary treatments (Table 7). The concentrations of DM, CP, and EE of breast muscle in a present experiment were in a range of the values of Noi chicken (25.0%DM, 21%CP and 3.45% EE, respectively) reported by Nguyen Thi Thuy (2012). The experiment was recorded that the birds in all dietary treatments were healthy and had 100% survival rates.

Conclusion

It was concluded that supplementing coconut oil increased dietary ME intake and tended to improve feed utilization. At a level of 6% coconut oil supplemented in diets improved growth performance and carcass quality for growing crossbred Noi chicken production.

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