The meat of feedlot chickens is poor because of a monotonous diet; how should they be fed to improve chicken meat quality?

    Through crossbreeding and improvement, meat chickens that grow rapidly and are raised on purely industrial feed are called feedlot chickens. The feed for feedlot chickens is nutritionally complete, but the meat quality is not good and the taste is poor. Below are several methods for reference only to improve broiler quality.

Chicken

    1. Add flavoring agents: Adding flavoring spices with both preservative and medicinal effects, such as clove, ginger, and sweet pepper, to the feed of fattening broilers can improve chicken meat quality and extend the shelf life. Flavoring agent formula: scallion and garlic 10 g each, dry yeast 7 g, ginger powder, five-spice powder, and chili powder 3 g each, monosodium glutamate and salt 0.5 g each. In the 10 to 15 days before slaughter, add at 0.2 to 0.5% of the daily ration, mix well, and feed once each in the morning and evening.

    2. Add garlic: The addition amount of garlic powder is 2% of the daily ration, which can make the chicken meat more fragrant. This is because the compound feed and ordinary feed for chickens lack the important component that forms chicken meat aroma, but garlic contains it. After chickens eat a daily ration mixed with garlic powder, the fishy smell in the chicken meat can be eliminated, and it is harmless to the chickens' growth.

    3. Add silage: Add 15% silage to 80% ordinary compound feed, then add 5% plant straw-type feed. This can make the meat aroma of confined chickens similar to that of naturally free-range chickens, and can also enhance the disease resistance of confined chickens.

    4. Add leaf mold: Farmyard chickens peck at grasses, rotten leaves, insects, earthworms, yeasts, sand grains, and so on, so they take in rich nutrition and their meat quality is better. On chicken farms, dig out the leaf mold on the surface of vegetable garden or orchard soil, dry it in the sun at room temperature, then mix it with chicken feed at a ratio of 70 to 80% chicken feed, 10 to 20% green feed, and 5 to 10% leaf mold, and feed it to chickens after mixing evenly; or mix 75% chicken compound feed, 15% forage feed, and 10% leaf mold, stir thoroughly, and use it as the daily ration to feed chickens. The meat quality and taste of chickens fed by this method are similar to those of native chickens.

    5. Add special feed: Besides feeding broilers with corn, rice, rice bran, peanut bran, sand grains, and so on to ensure the supply of protein, vitamins, minerals, and basic substances, some special feed can be fed: (1) For example, feed banana peels every other day until slaughter, which can make the chicken meat tender, bouncy, and fragrant; (2) It is also possible to feed green feed such as thatch grass and cowhair grass every other day until slaughter, which can make the chicken meat good in color and taste, with a gamey flavor.