THE ROLE OF WHEAT NONSTARCH POLYSACCHARIDES IN BROILER NUTRITION

It has been well established over a number of years that the apparent metabolisable energy (AME) value of wheat is highly variable. In 1983 and 1987 in Australia two surveys indicated that approximately 25% of wheats have AME values lower than 13 MJ/kg.DM (range 10.4-15.9 MJ/kg.DM). Following recent studies it has been proposed that the soluble non-starch polysaccharide cell-wall components of wheat (mainly arabinoxylan with some beta-glucan) have an anti-nitritive activity when wheats are present at high levels in broiler diets and are responsible for the low-AME wheat phenomenon. The main findings supporting this hypothesis are (1) wheat AME values are negatively correlated with soluble non-starch polysaccharide levels, (2) low level addition (30g/kg) of commercially available pur non-starch polysaccharides to broiler diets depresses the AME of the diets, (3) degradation of the cell wall polysaccharides in situ by addition of glycanases to broiler diets raises AME values, and (4) addition of purified wheat arabinoxylan to broiler diets depresses the AME in a dose-dependant manner. The AME depression is a result of the inhibition of starch, lipid and, proteindigestion in the fore-gut. This paper reviews the experiments and the data from the studies and discusses further aspects of the anti-nutritive activity of cereal polysaccharides in broiler diets. The possible role of the gut microflora in the growth depression observed when diets containing high levels of rye, barley and wheat are fed to broiler chickens is also examined.