Abstract

DE OLIVEIRA, Maria Cristina et al. Use of bee pollen in broiler diet. Rev. mex. de cienc. pecuarias [online]. 2015, vol.6, n.3, pp.263-276. ISSN 2448-6698.

Bee pollen (BP) can be a nutritional complement for animals because it improves nutrient use efficiency, increasing their absorption and accelerating animal growth, improving their productive performance. The effect of BP in broiler diet was assessed on digestibility, performance, intestinal mucosa and litter quality. To assess the digestibility, 200 birds were used in a randomized block design with four treatments (0, 0.5, 1 and 1.5% BP inclusion) and five replications. Four hundred (400) birds were used to assess performance, intestinal mucosa morphology and litter quality, in a completely randomized design with the four treatments and five replications. BP had a quadratic effect on apparent digestibility of dry matter and ether extract and a linear effect on calcium retention and on apparent metabolizable energy value. Including BP did not influence (P>0.05) the performance, carcass yield, and viscera or the duodenum and the jejunum at 42 d, the ileum at 21 d and litter quality up to 21 d of age. BP improved the pancreas yield, villus morphology in the duodenum and jejunum at 21 d, and in the ileum at 42 d and ammonia volatilization. As conclusion, BP at 1.5 % improves nutrient digestibility and intestinal morphology but not the productive performance.

Keywords : Additives; Broiler nutrition; Bee products; Food supplements.