Nutritional Evaluation of Full-Fat Sunflower Seed for Broiler Chickens (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is one of the most widely cultivated oilseeds in the world and ranks third in importance as a source of vegetable oil. Although referred to as sunflower seed, it is more correctly described as a type of indehiscent fruit. Hybrid varieties contain 380 to 540 g of oil/kg (Crum et al., 1993), which is very rich in linoleic acid. It also has 12.6% CF, 21.13% NDF (neutral detergent fiber), 14.98% ADF (acid detergent fiber), and 4.4% ADL (acid detergent lignin) (Rodriguez et al., 2005). Sunflower seed contains a moderate amount of protein, approximately 40 to 50% (as much as soybean seeds). Trends toward formulating high-energy diets for broiler chickens make it necessary for inclusion of fats and oils up to 10% in broiler feeds. Fats and oils are rich sources of energy, containing 39.29 MJ/kg gross energy, but are more costly on a weight basis and may contain impurities (Blair and Potter, 1988). As an alternative to fats and oils, full-fat oilseeds (Ajuyah et al., 1993) such as soybean seed are used to replace the supplemented fats and oils in broiler diets. However, soybean seed has anti-nutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors, which need further processing, thus increasing the cost of soybean seed. Among the various oilseeds available on the market, FFSS contains more ether extract (EE) and is available at a relatively low price. This high EE content contributes to a high ME per unit or high energy density of feed. The increased production and availability of hybrid FFSS coupled with its oil content make FFSS a potentially desirable ingredient in poultry feeds. In the last few years, unextracted whole seed has been used as a feed ingredient in poultry diets.