Effects of feeding fermented rapeseed meal on growth performance, gastrointestinal microflora population, blood metabolites, meat quality, and lipid metabolism in broiler chickens

Abstract This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of replacing soybean meal (SBM) with rapeseed meal (RSM) or fermented rapeseed meal (FRSM) in diets on growth performance, gastrointestinal microflora population, blood metabolites, meat quality, and lipid metabolism in broiler chickens. Three hundred 1-d-old male broiler chickens were allocated to 5 dietary treatments with 4 pens and 15 chickens in each pen (including a corn-SBM control diet as well as 4 experimental diets in which 50 and 100% of SBM protein in the corn-SBM control diet was replaced with RSM or FRSM) in a completely randomized design. Broiler chickens fed diets containing 50 and 100% FRSM had greater weight gain (WG) and a better feed conversion ratio (FCR; P P P P P P