New dietary fat for turkeys
Nobacithin 50, a mixture based on soya lecithin and fatty acids, is a good replacer for soya oil in turkey diets, trial results have shown.
Lecithin is a fat-like substance which can be produced from soya bean, rape or sunflower oil. After degumming the oil, the lecithin is extracted from the gum and then cleaned. Lecithin is a complex mixture of at least 60% phospholipids; the other constituents are triglycerides, phosphatidic acid, choline, tocopherols, etc. Lecithin has a positive effect on several metabolic processes, because phospholipids play an important role in such processes.
The main effect of lecithin is that it works as an emulsifier. This means that lecithin makes it possible to mix oil and water together. Lecithin plays a role in the splitting and absorption of fat. So the use of lecithin leads to an increase in fat splitting, fat absorption and fat digestion. This results in more energy availability and thus improves the technical performance of the animals.
Broilers, pigs… and turkeys?
Noba Vital Lipids has with Nobacithin 50 more than a decade’s worth of experience in the pig, broiler and layer industries. The product is very often used in feed for those animals, because of the nutritional benefits and the interesting price level. The product is highly digestible and that makes it a good energy source for young animals. Based upon this experience Noba Vital Lipids undertook a trial with turkeys, to test if Nobacithin 50 is also a good fat source for turkeys and to determine if you can replace soya oil with Nobacithin 50.
Trial set up
One-day-old turkey males BUT-6 were used at the start of this trial. The length of the trial was 20 weeks. In this trial a 5 phase feeding system was used. The table shows the 4 different treatments. The aim of the trial was to test if Nobacithin is a good replacer for soya oil and to determine the efficacy of different levels of Nobacithin 50 in turkey diets. Differences were made in levels of Nobacithin 50 in phase 4 and 5. Fat product 20L45 is a vegetable fat blend with 20% linoleic acid (C18:2) and a maximum level of 45% FFA (Free Fatty Acids). Each group had 259 birds, in total 1036 birds were used in this trial.
The turkeys reached a high final body weight of approx. 22 kg. There are no differences in final weight. Figure 1 shows the body weight for each treatment per phase.
Note: P4; groups with different letters show a significant difference, P=0.025
Figure 2 shows the feed conversion ratio (FCR) for each treatment per phase. There were no significant differences between groups. Sometimes there is a small variation of FCR, but it is always in line with the control group. There were also no significant differences in FCR for the total period.
FPD score
Foot pad dermatitis was scored at a 4 points scale, conform the European Standard method. The group with only Nobacithin (treatment 4) had the same FPD score of 2.85 as the control group with soy oil. The other groups with 3 or 6% Nobacithin showed a lower score. The group with 3% scored 2.43 and the group with 6% Nobacithin scored 2.0. There were no differences in carcass quality and meat quality between groups.
The trial showed that the groups with Nobacithin 50 performed as good as the control group with soya oil. Therefore Nobacithin is a good replacer for soya oil for all phases of age. Nobacithin 50 is also very suitable for starter feed for turkeys.
[Source: Noba Vital Lipids]
