Whole pearl millet feeding does not impair performance and nutrient digestibility in 28‐day‐old broiler chickens

Abstract The effects of varying inclusion levels of whole grain millet in millet–soya bean‐based diets on growth performance, gizzard development, digesta characteristics and nutrient digestion in broiler chicken were investigated. Starter (0–14 days) and grower (15–28 days) broiler chicken diets containing pearl millet at 500 and 540 g/kg diet, respectively, were formulated. The diets comprised of 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of millet incorporated as whole grain. One‐day‐old unsexed Arbor Acres Plus chicks ( n = 540) were allotted to the experimental diets in a completely randomized design with the diets and water provided ad libitum for 28 days. Each treatment was replicated seven times, and each replicate had 12 chicks. Results showed that daily live weight gain and feed conversion ratio of chickens on the whole millet grain diets compared favourably with chicken on the control in both starter and grower phases, while feed intake reduced quadratically ( p < .05) with increased whole grain millet levels in the starter phase. Morphological and structural characteristics of the gizzard and small intestine and intestinal digesta pH and viscosity were also unaffected ( p > .05) by whole grain millet inclusion levels. However, the weight of intact millet grain in gizzard increased linearly ( p < .001) with whole grain millet inclusion in the diets. Dietary whole grain millet inclusion also consistently lowered ( p < .05) jejunal and ileal maltase and sucrase activities, but did not influence ( p > .05) pancreatic amylase activity. Ileal crude protein and starch digestibility increased, while ileal energy digestibility decreased significantly ( p < .05) with whole grain millet inclusion. Whole grain millet inclusion in broiler starter and grower diets up to 500–540 g/kg did not negatively impact on broiler chicken performance.