The Nutritive Value of Guar Meal and its Effect on Growth Performance of Meat Ducks

The aim of this study was to study the effects of different levels of guar meal (GM) on growth performance of meat ducks, to explore the possibility of GM as an alternative protein resource in meat duck diets.Firstly, the chemical composition, dry matter (DM) digestibility, metabolic energy (ME) were determined.Secondly, a total of four hundred eighty 15-day-old Shuanggui-tou meat ducks were divided into 4 treatments, 1) Control group (0% GM in the diet), 2) 3% GM group (3% GM in the diet), 3) 6% GM group (6% GM in the diet), and 4) 9% GM group (9% GM in the diet).All groups had 8 replicates and 15 birds were included in each replicate.The experiment lasted for 28 days.The average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were measured.Results showed that: (1) the DM, CP, EE, CF, Ash, Ca, Pi, GE content of GM is 89.96%, 47.80%, 4.92%, 6.43%, 4.49%, 0.3%, 0.63%, 4.66 Mcal/Kg, respectively, the composition of Met, Lys, Ile, Asp, Glu, Gly, His, Arg, Thr, Ala, Pro, Tyr, Val, Phe in GM is 0.499%, 2.023%, 1.485%, 2.795%, 4.834%, 11.543%, 2.626%, 1.315%, 6.128%, 1.491%, 1.905%, 1.750%, 1.498%, 1.680%, 2.184%, respectively.(2) The DMD and TDDM of GM is 47.13% and 58.31%, respectively.The AME, TME of GM is 2.71 Mcal/Kg and 3.03 Mcal/Kg, respectively.(3) Add GM to the duck diets significant affect the final weight (P<0.05),ADG (P<0.05),FCR (P<0.01), but had no effect on ADFI of ducks (P>0.05).Our results suggest that the GM would be a high quality protein resource in diets for meat ducks.