Effects of dietary rapeseed meal and peas on the performance and meat quality of broilers

Performance, meat quality and litter quality were determined in 4000 male and female Ross 308 broilers fed on starter diet (soybean meal or rapeseed meal and peas) and grower-finisher diets based on either soybean meal (control) or substituting rapeseed meal or rapeseed meal and pea in different proportions (100/0%, 75/25% or 50/50%) for soybean meal in iso-nitrogenous basis. Performance of the birds fed with soybean meal diets was superior compared to that of the birds fed with rapeseed meal and pea based diets. Bird performance was the poorest and mortality the highest for the birds fed with the rapeseed meal grower diet. In this experiment birds did not reach performance target for the age and strain of bird. Overall, diet based solely on rapeseed meal protein is not suitable for broiler production. However, dietary rapeseed meal inclusion clearly improved fatty acid profile of breast meat. The omega-6/omega-3-ratio was 4.1, 2.4 and 2.7 for soybean meal, rapeseed meal, and rapeseed meal and peas based diets, respectively. There were no differences in sensory quality evaluation of breast meat between the treatments.