Apr. 10, 2013 — According to animal scientists,
farmers could further protect the environment by breeding chickens with larger
digestive organs. This research, published in the February issue of the Journal
of Animal Science, could solve a major problem in poultry production.
In some areas, large poultry operations release nitrogen
and phosphorus into the environment. These pollutants come from chicken waste,
and they can cause ecological problems like algal blooms in rivers and lakes.
"These result in a loss of plant and animal species
and have negative impacts on the use of water for human consumption," said
study co-author Dr. Agnes Narcy in an interview.
Narcy, along with and fellow researchers from the French
National Institute For Agricultural Research (INRA) and France's Center of
Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), bred chickens to test whether
selecting for larger digestive organ size could reduce the amount of waste that
the chicken excreted.
The key organs were the proventriculus and the gizzard.
The proventriculus is a stomach-like organ that softens food using acids and
digestive enzymes. The gizzard is a compartment with thick, muscular walls that
grinds food. Together, these organs prepare foods for digestion in the small
intestine.
Narcy and fellow researchers hypothesized that chickens
with larger, better functioning digestive organs would absorb more nutrients
from their feed and therefore produce less waste. To test this hypothesis, the
researchers selected chickens and raised three lines with differing abilities
to digest feed.
After rearing nine generations of each line, the
researchers found that chickens with larger digestive organs ate less feed and
produced less waste. The researchers concluded that selecting for this trait
could make poultry production more environmentally and economically
sustainable. They say that a farmer raising 20,000 chickens could save 9.76 tons
of feed per hatch.
"Furthermore, such selection would not affect body
composition and meat and bone quality traits at slaughter age," said
Narcy.
Narcy said the next step is for animal scientists to
identify the genes that control digestive efficiency in chickens. By
pinpointing the right genes, researchers could help farmers select the most
efficient chickens for breeding.
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