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

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 ingredients.

#### **2.1 Sorghum**

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


**21**

*Nontraditional Feedstuffs as an Alternative in Poultry Feed*

can completely replace yellow corn in poultry diets.

**2.3 Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS)**

of DDGS; high protein and conventional DDGS (**Table 2**).

4 – O – methyl gallate [4]. Therefore, the action of methyl donors such as calcium hydroxide or slurry of sodium carbonate could be included in poultry rations to improve the feed intake of high tannin sorghum. As a result, low tannin sorghum

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

Alternative and clean sources of energy are more attractive nowadays against fossil energy. The production of biofuel has globally increasing [7]. Therefore, the by-product obtained from this process is known as distillers dried grain with solubles (DDGS). It can be defined as a product obtained after ethanol extraction by distillation from the yeast fermentation, and drying at 75% of the resultant [8]. Including DDGS in poultry diets to replace part of yellow corn and soybean meal have shown positive results in terms of growth performance [9]. The main limitation of using DDGS in monogastrics is the variability of its nutrients content and availability [9]. This is due to the variation of growing conditions, ethanol production method and oil extraction. Therefore, it was reported that there are two types

**Nutrient High protein DDGS Conventional DDGS** Dry matter 83.10 89.80 Crude protein 34.10 27.10 Crude fiber 8.35 7.85 Ether extract 7.91 9.63 Arginine 1.49 1.10 Cystine 0.58 0.45 Glycine 1.25 0.60 Histidine 0.88 0.62 Isoleucine 1.26 1.15 Leucine 4.32 2.40 Lysine 1.16 0.70 Methionine 0.74 0.50 Phenyl alanine 1.57 1.35 Serine 1.60 1.30 Threonine 1.31 0.93 Tryptophan 0.30 0.20

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95946*

15% wheat bran in their diets [4].

**2.2 Wheat bran**

#### **Table 1.**

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

4 – O – methyl gallate [4]. Therefore, the action of methyl donors such as calcium hydroxide or slurry of sodium carbonate could be included in poultry rations to improve the feed intake of high tannin sorghum. As a result, low tannin sorghum can completely replace yellow corn in poultry diets.
