Effect of dietary sorghum germ meal on performance and meat quality of broiler chicks

Two hundred Lohmann broiler chicks were equally allocated into 20 pens after being adapted on a control diet for 7 days. The four dietary treatments containing graded levels of sorghum germ meal (SGM, 0, 75, 150, 225 g kg−1) were randomly assigned to the pens (five pens per dietary treatment). L‐Lysine and DL‐methionine were added to the diets to raise their contents to the recommended levels for starter broiler chicks. Feed and water were provided ad libitum throughout the 6‐week experimental period. The dietary treatment had negative linear effects (P < 0.01) on body weight, feed intake, weight gain, feed:gain ratio and dressing percentage, and a positive linear effect (P < 0.01) on liver and viscera relative weights. It had insignificant effects (P > 0.05) on pancreas, bursa relative weights, incidence of leg abnormalities and mortality rate. Abdominal fat relative weight had shown a significant negative linear effect (P < 0.05). Dietary SGM had no detectably different effect on colour, juiciness, tenderness and flavour of the meat when evaluated by semi‐trained panellists.