Relationship between wheat characteristics and nutrient digestibility in broilers: comparison between total collection and marker (titanium dioxide) technique.

Three wheat cultivars (Orpheus, Rustic, and Viscount) were used to formulate 3 test feeds (62.4% wheat) in a broiler digestibility trial. The diets were fed to male Ross 308 broiler chickens. The wheat cultivars mainly differed in their amount of non-starch polysaccharides ( NSP: ). The cultivar Orpheus was chosen to represent a high amount of NSP (102 g/kg DM), whereas the cultivars Rustic and Viscount represented low amounts of NSP (83.4 g/kg DM and 73.9 g/kg DM, respectively). Furthermore, the cultivars Orpheus and Viscount were feed quality wheat, whereas Rustic was a milling quality wheat. Nutrient digestibilities and AMEn contents of the diets were measured from 18 to 22-days-old by total excreta collection, or with the use of the indigestible marker titanium dioxide. In addition, the ileal viscosity was measured when the broilers were 25-days-old. Wheat cultivar affected N retention, DM digestibility, and AMEn. In general, the feed formulated with the high NSP wheat cultivar Orpheus resulted in the least favorable nutrient digestibilities and AMEn, whereas the results were better when the feed was formulated with the low NSP cultivars Viscount and Rustic. Feeding the Rustic cultivar caused the highest intestinal viscosity, although this was not reflected in the animal responses. Nutrient digestibilities and AMEn content of the diets were lower when calculated with the titanium dioxide marker than with the total excreta collection procedure. Moreover, the P-values of the effect of wheat cultivar on DM digestibility, N retention, crude fat digestibility and AMEn were lower with the use of the titanium dioxide marker. It can be concluded that wheat cultivar affected nutrient digestibility and AMEn, and that the observed differences were related to the amount of NSP. Furthermore, both the titanium dioxide marker and the total excreta collection methods showed the same trends despite the different values obtained. The titanium dioxide marker method was the simplest to use and produced valid results.