Development of the gastrointestinal tract and digestibility of dietary fibre and amino acids in young chickens, ducks and geese fed diets with high amounts of barley

The experiment comprised of 50 chickens, 40 ducks and 30 geese fed a diet containing 40% barley. Birds were kept in metabolic cages from 1 to 42 days of age. A balance trial was carried out during the last week of the bird's life and the apparent digestibility of nutrients was determined. At 21 and 42 days of age 12 animals per species were killed. The absolute length of intestines followed the live weight (LW) of the animals. In relation to metabolic LW (kg(0.67)), the total length was significantly higher in chickens and geese than in ducks at 21 days of age, but identical in the three species at 42 days of age. The absolute and relative weights of intestines were smaller in ducks than in chickens and geese both at 21 and 42 days of age. Dietary fibre was digested better by chickens than by ducks and geese (P < 0.01). Ileal digestibility of total amino acids amounted to 76% in chickens, 69% in ducks (P > 0.05) and only 56% in geese (P < 0.01) with relatively low digestibility of methionine (70, 44 and 52%) and lysine (72, 57 and 41%), respectively. The overall tract-faecal digestibility of total amino acids was evaluated on the level of 86% for all three species and indicates a substantial hind gut synthesis of amino acids. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.