Food intake, growth rate, food conversion and food choice in broilers fed on diets high in rapeseed meal and pea meal, with observations on sensory evaluation of the resulting poultry meat

1. Experiments were done to measure the effects of 100 and 200 g/kg of either pea meal or low glucosinolate, low erucic acid rapeseed meal on food intake and growth, food choice and meat organoleptic quality in broiler chickens. 2. The test diets were formulated to be iso-energetic and iso-nitrogenous with a soy-wheat control diet. In all diets, lysine was fixed at 11.0 g/kg and all other indispensable amino acids were present in excess of requirements. 3. Food intake was little affected by the inclusion of 100 g/kg of pea meal in the diet but 200 g/kg of peas caused a decrease. Rapeseed produced a decrease in food intake at both dietary concentrations. 4. Weight gain was similarly affected, but food conversion from d 0 to d 42 was little affected by the inclusion of either peas or rapeseed. 5. Absolute breast muscle weight was affected by diet but there was no significant difference in breast weight as a proportion of total body weight. 6. From d 7 onwards, selection against the pea-containing diet approached statistical significance. Between d 7 and d 14, birds ate almost twice as much of the control as of the pea-containing diet. Birds offered a rapeseed meal diet ate similar amounts of that and the control diet. 7. The breast meat from birds given 200 g rapeseed/kg was the only meat identified as different but no strong aversion was expressed by the tasting panel.