This work was carried out to determine the nutritional value of corn of different qualities, obtained by means of stratification in densimetric table, for broilers in different ages. The corns were designed as: MDA - high density corn; MDI - medium density corn; MDB - low density corn and MDT - total density corn, composed by 30% MDA, 60% MDI and 10% MDB. Two biological assays were carried out using the traditional total excreta collection method to determine the apparent metabolizable energy corrected by nitrogen balance (AME N). The first assay was carried out using Cobb chicks with 11 to 19 days old and in the second assay, with chicks with 29 to 37 days old. Chemical analyses were made to estimate the nutritional profile, classification of the grains according to density and comparison by means of prediction equation estimatives the energy values and mycotoxins. The digestible amino acids profiles were obtained by NIR. The values of AME N of corns of different qualities (MDA, MDI, MDB and MDT) for broilers in initial phase were respectively: 3308; 3121; 2937 and 3239 kcal/kg; and broilers in growing phase were respectively: 3413, 3362, 3174 and 3348 kcal/kg. These results indicated significant energy losses of low density corn and the efficiency of the densimetric table to stratify the grains by quality. The different AME N values between birds ages suggest better energy utilization efficiency as age increases. The prediction equations could be used to estimate energy value of corn by its classification or density. However, the error associated to each prediction equation could compromise the accuracy of the nutritional value. The contaminations by aflatoxins and trichothecenes changed with quality of the stratified corn, important factor to be considered in the broilers feeding.
aminoacids; density; metabolizable energy; mycotoxins
