The effect of crumbled and pelleted feed on the incidence of sudden death syndrome among male chicken broilers.
An experiment involving 7200 male broiler chickens was conducted to estimate the effect of feeding crumble-pellet diets on the incidence of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS). Mortality due to SDS was significantly higher for birds fed a crumble-pellet regimen in its usual form or in a ground form compared with birds fed all-mash diets. Birds fed the crumble-pellet dietary regimen grew more rapidly than those on either the ground crumble-pellet regimen or on all-mash. There was no significant (P = .05) difference in the growth rate of the birds fed the ground crumble-pellet regimen compared with those fed all-mash. It was concluded that the higher incidence of SDS was due to some factor(s) in the pelleting process itself rather the rapid growth resulting from the higher density of pelleted feeds.
D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens / Q000254:growth & development; D003645:Death, Sudden / Q000662:veterinary*; D008297:Male; D010316:Particle Size; D011201:Poultry Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D013577:Syndrome / Q000662:veterinary