**2.2 Wheat bran**

*Advances in Poultry Nutrition Research*

factors [2].

ingredients.

**2.1 Sorghum**

such as wheat bran, rice bran, cotton seed meal, copra meal and palm kernel cake. However, many of these agro waste by–products are featuring on presence of nonstarch polysaccharides (NSPs) such as xylan and mannan as well as anti-nutritional

The NSPs are found to be the main reason for increasing the viscosity in the small intestine of the birds, and hence lead to increased moisture content of the excreta. Hence, the productivity and health status of the chickens could be affected [2]. Therefore, the inclusion of these agro waste by–products in poultry feed are limited. The nontraditional feedstuffs can be defined as those feed ingredients that have not been conventionally or commercially used in poultry rations. This chapter discusses the nontraditional feedstuffs with potential to be replaced partially or

It is well known that yellow corn is used as a main source of energy ingredient in poultry diets [2]. There are some nonconventional feed ingredients that can substitute certain amount of yellow corn in poultry rations. However, there are some limitations such as presence of anti-nutritional factors that lead to decrease feed intake and growth performance (**Table 1**). The other important point to consider is that the lack of knowledge about the composition of nutrients and their availability, due to the lack of research centers in the developing countries limit use of these feed

Sorghum is the main food grain in Africa and parts of India and China [3]. The nutritive value of sorghum is almost 90–95% similar to that of yellow corn. Moreover, its global price is less than yellow corn [4]. The problem of sorghum is the high tannins content, which is water soluble polyphenolic metabolites and leads to reduce growth performance of poultry. Tannins in higher concentration are antinutritional because made chelates and reduce protein digestibility [5]. Sorghum is usually classified as bird resistant (less than 0.5% tannin) or non-bird resistant (1.5% tannin or higher) varieties. The negative effects of tannins are decreasing growth, feed intake, protein digestibility, egg production and leg abnormalities with broilers [4]. There are some procedures that can be applied to the sorghum to minimize tannins and improve the nutritive value of such feed ingredients. These methods include soaking in alkali solution and water. It is reported that tannic acid can be hydrolyzed in the chicks to gallic acid which excreted in urine as

totally with soybean meal and yellow corn in poultry feeds.

**2. Alternative feed ingredients for yellow corn**

**Ingredient Limitation**

Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS)

Sorghum High tannins content.

Millets High fiber and tannins.

*Alternative energy sources that can replace yellow corn in poultry diets.*

Wheat bran High fiber content, low metabolizable energy.

isoleucine.

Variability and availability of nutrients.

Date wastes High fiber content in the date pits, low lysine, methionine, leucine and

**20**

**Table 1.**

Wheat bran is the outer seed coat from flour mills. High in fiber, low in metabolizable energy (ME) and its usage in poultry nutrition is limited [4]. The ME can be increased up to 10% by simple steam pelleting, and the availability of phosphorus up to 20% under the same condition [6]. This by product could be beneficial for gut health which is reported to modify the gut microflora [4]. It is reported that wheat bran can be added in poultry diets up to 5–8% without negative effect [4]. Wheat bran contains xylan which may lead to increase viscosity in the small intestines. Therefore, xylanase supplementation is recommended for broilers fed more than 15% wheat bran in their diets [4].
