A metabolism trial was carried out to evaluate the utilization of LIPE® as an external indicator of energy digestibility in broilers. The treatments included a basal diet and other different eight diets. Corn grain, expanded corn, soybean meal, expanded soybean meal, 22% crude protein gluten meal, 60% crude protein gluten meal, meat and bone meal and feather and viscera meal, were used. The basal diet was substituted with 40% or 25 % of the feed containing more energy or protein, respectively. Two hundred seventy 21 to 31-day-old both sexes Ross lineage broiler chicks were used. A completely randomized design in a 9x3 factorial arrangement (nine forms of rations x three methods) with three replicates was used. The metabolizable energy of the feeds was calculated by the total fecal collection method and by the indicators methods of chromic oxide and LIPE®. Chromic oxide use resulted in higher values of coefficient of digestibility and apparent metabolizable energy for expanded soybean meal and feathers and viscera meal when compared with the use of LIPE® and total feces collection which there similar between themselves. The results validated the LIPE® as an external energy digestibility index of the feed of broiler chicks evaluated.
broiler; digestibility; chromic oxide; total fecal collection
