Effects of oat hulls and wood shavings on digestion in broilers and layers fed diets based on whole or ground wheat

1. An experiment was conducted to study the effects of inclusion of oat hulls in diets based on whole or ground wheat for broilers. Effects of wood shavings on layers were investigated in a further experiment. 2. Inclusion of oat hulls in wheat-based broiler diets did not affect weight gain. Feed conversion efficiency (FCE), corrected for insoluble fibre contents, was improved by oat hull inclusion. 3. Gizzard size increased with inclusion of oat hulls, whole wheat, wood shavings and grit. 4. Starch digestibility was significantly increased by inclusion of oat hulls for broilers, and by wood shavings for layers. 5. Wood shavings and whole wheat did not affect bile acid concentration of gizzard contents. However, the total amount of bile acids in gizzard increased with access to wood shavings due to an increase in the weight of gizzard contents, indicating an increased gastroduodenal reflux. 6. Fibre concentration was considerably higher in the gizzard contents than in the feed. 7. Duodenal particle size decreased with access to grit. No effect of hulls or whole wheat inclusion was found, indicating that all particles are ground to a certain critical size before leaving the gizzard.