Fermented coffee cherry pulp shows promise in Thai chickens

A new poultry nutrition study in Animals reports that adding fermented coffee cherry pulp to feed improved performance and some product-quality measures in Thai native chickens, with the strongest results at 1.0 g/kg of diet over a 12-week trial involving 500 chicks across five treatment groups. The study compared a basal diet, an antibiotic growth promoter group, and three fermented coffee cherry pulp inclusion levels, and found the 1.0 g/kg group significantly improved final body weight and feed conversion ratio. The paper also ties those effects to shifts in cecal microbiota, while a newly published review in Veterinary Sciences highlights chlorogenic acid, a key coffee-pulp polyphenol, as a plausible mechanism through its links to antioxidant activity, inflammation control, gut barrier function, and lipid metabolism in chickens. (mdpi.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals and poultry advisers, the finding adds to a growing body of evidence that coffee-processing by-products may have value as functional feed ingredients, especially as producers keep looking for non-antibiotic growth-promoting strategies. That said, the broader literature still points to a dose question: newer coffee-pulp work in broilers has shown benefits at targeted inclusion levels, while older studies found performance penalties when coffee pulp was used too aggressively or in less processed forms. Fermentation appears important because it can improve antioxidant capacity, phenolic availability, and digestibility, but practical use will still depend on consistency, safety, palatability, caffeine and tannin management, and cost at commercial scale. (mdpi.com)

What to watch: Watch for follow-up in vivo work on optimal inclusion rates, safety, microbiome effects, and whether fermented coffee cherry pulp can reliably replace antibiotic growth promoters under commercial conditions. (mdpi.com)