Acta Vet. Brno 2006, 75: 495-500
Testing of Two Varieties of Lupin Seeds as Substitutes for Soya Extracted Meal in Vegetable Diets Designed for Young Broilers
The main aim of this experiment was to verify the suitability of two Polish varieties of dehulled lupin seed (the low-protein SONET variety and the high-protein JUNO variety) as protein components to replace 50% of soya extract meal in feeding mixtures designed for the feeding of young broilers. The results of this experiment demonstrate that suitable treatment of lupin seed (dehulling) may significantly increase its nutritional value. Dehulling provides a product (core) in which the level of nitrogen-containing substances is by 27% higher than that in the original seed, providing an important protein component to be added in feeding mixtures for chickens. The experiment has also shown that production performance depends on the particular Lupinus variety used. Chickens fed on the JUNO variety seed (Group E1) reached a live weight of 2.332 kg on Day 40, which is comparable with the control group of chickens (2.337 kg; Group C). However, chickens in Group E2 fed on the SONET variety seed had a conclusively lower average weight (2.280 kg) (P < 0.05). Feed consumption per kg of weight gain at this level of average live weight was as follows: 1.89 kg (Group C), 1.85 kg (Group E1), and 1.93 kg (Group E2). The results confirm the suitability of dehulled lupin seed as a substitute for soya extract meal. When designing the composition of feeding mixtures one has to know the exact nutritional composition of the particular lupin variety. One important finding from a nutritional point of view is that the seed of the Lupinus genus is a major source of the amino acid arginine, which is often deficient in the feeding mixtures.
Keywords
Growth of chickens, Lupin seeds, JUNO variety, SONET variety, performance.
