Supplementing broiler diets with hemp seed cake could improve bird gut health and meat quality, as well as offering producers a sustainable alternative ingredient for feed.
Scientists in Italy found that feeding birds a diet with 5% or 10% hemp seed cake had a positive impact on the structure of the intestine, significantly increasing the height and surface of gut villus — long, finger-like structures that play a crucial role in absorbing nutrients.
It also led to lower concentrations of molecules that are responsible for meat spoiling — malondialdehyde and lipid hydroperoxides — suggesting hemp seed cake has anti-oxidative properties that can preserve meat quality.
In a study investigating the effects of different levels of hemp seed cake inclusion in broiler diets, published in Veterinary Quarterly, researchers at the Experimental Poultry Research Center of the University of Bari separated 180 male day-old chicks into three groups.
After feeding all the birds the same mashed diet for two weeks, one group was switched to a standard grower-finished diet, the second group was given 5% hemp seed cake, and the third group was fed 10% hemp seed cake.
Analysis of the birds after culling at 49 days found that the hemp seed cake had no negative effects on broiler performance, carcass traits or meat quality.
However, the fatty acids found in thighs and breast meat was significantly improved in the birds that ate a diet with hemp seed cake, the researchers found. Fatty acids are important important as they can improve the flavour and texture of meat as well as reducing its saturated fat content.
Coupled with the hemp seed’s positive influence on oxidative stress and gut health, the researchers said the study showed hemp seed was “a valuable and sustainable ingredient in broiler diets”.
Produced from cannabis sativa, the European Food Safety Authority has allowed hempseed cake to be used in livestock production since 2011.
Many poultry producers utilise it as an alternative to soybeans as it is a good source of crude proteins and essential amino acids.
As well as being more sustainable than soybeans, hemp seed cake is also free of trypsin inhibitors and oligosaccharides, which are present in soybeans and responsible for some gastrointestinal disorders in birds.
