Effect of various levels of full-fat sunflower seed on performance of broiler chickens

Abstract

Sunflower (Helianthus annuusL.) is one of the most widely cultivated oilseeds in the world and ranks third in importance as a source of vegetable oil. As an alternative to fats and oils, full-fat oilseeds such as soybean seed are used to replace the supplemented fats and oils in broiler diets. However, soybean seed has anti-nutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors, which need further processing, thus increasing the cost of soybean seed. Among the various oilseeds available on the market, full-fat sunflower seed (FFSS) contains more ether extract (EE) and is available at a relatively low price. This experiment was conducted to study the effect of FFSS (that FFSS had 18% CP, 38% EE, 14.3% CF, and 3868 kcal/kg ME) on performance of broiler chickens.