Optimum Basal Feed Formula Selection And Some Green Feed Premixes Application On Meat Duck, Xinhu No.3

The experiment was carried out with 2 stages. The first stage was carried out to determining the optimum basal feed formula for meat ducks during age 0-7 weeks. The feed was designed with low (11.715MJ/kg), medial (12.134MJ/kg) and high (12.552MJ/kg) metabolizable energy (ME) level, and low (19.0%), medial (20.0%) and high (21.0%) crude protein (CP) level for 0-2 weeks, and 11.297MJ/kg, 11.715MJ/kg, 12.134MJ/kg with 13.0%, 14.5%, 16.0% for 3-7 weeks, respectively. Total 420 ducks, same day bourn lean-type Xinhu No.3, were randomly assigned to 7 groups with equivalence. By the experiments of feeding, metabolism and slaughter, the results show that, the optimum basal diet for 0-2 weeks old were low ME + low CP and middle ME + low CP, and for 3-7 weeks old were low ME + middle CP and middle ME + low CP.The second stage was to determining the effects of 6 different premixes with the optimum basal feed formula selected previous. 360 ducks with same age brooding together for 7 days, then divided randomly into 6 groups. 1-2 weeks and 3-7 weeks periods used the complete feed which was composed by optimum basal formula that had been studied at first period (1～2 weeks with low ME + low CP; 3～7 weeks with middle ME + low CP). The premixes added to the feeds were Chinese herb, probiotics, small peptides, oligosaccharide, the mixture of small peptides with probiotics, with antibiotic as a control. The ducks growth performance, carcass quality, physiology and biochemistry indices were estimated. The result show that the effect of these additives were just same or some more than the control on live weight, feed/gain, survival rate, cost, carcass quality, meat nutrients, intestinal pH, T3, T4 and the numbers of intestinal microorganisms etc., suggesting that these additives could replace antibiotics as a kind of green feed additive in meat ducks. Among these, the probiotics and Chinese herb was as a better select.