摘要High feed costs and compromised meat quality are among the major issues perturbing the global broiler industry.This study therefore investigated Vachellia erioloba pods-derived oyster mushroom spent substrate(OMSS)as a potential nutraceutical feed ingredient to replace wheat bran for enhancing meat quality in broilers.Four hundred male Ross 308 chicks at 14 d of age were randomly allocated to 40 pens and fed treatment diets(0％,1.25％,2.5％,5％and 10％OMSS)each with 8 replicates of 10 birds for 28 d(grower:d 15 to 28,and finisher:d 29 to 42)prior to slaughter on d 43.Whilst there were no effects of diet on overall body weight gain(BWG),feed conversion efficiency(FCE),mortality rate,carcass traits,meat physicochemical quality,and most haemato-biochemistry parameters(P＞0.05),dietary OMSS increased chicken overall feed intake(FI)(linear:P=0.043),gizzard weights(linear:P=0.021),and breast meat ether extract(EE)(linear:P＜0.001)as it tended to increase its ash(P=0.064)contents.Further,OMSS linearly increased chicken white blood cells(P=0.044),lymphocytes(P=0.002),platelets(P=0.009),monocytes(P=0.007),and lipase activity(P=0.015),and linearly decreased its eosinophils(P=0.007)and platelet distribution width(PDW;P=0.003).Moreover,OMSS increased breast meat myristic(linear:P=0.012),palmitic(quadratic:P=0.015),palmitoleic(linear:P=0.023),and oleic(linear:P=0.002)acids,and impacted its total monounsaturated fatty acids(MUFAs),with 1.25％and 5％inclusion levels inducing the lowest and highest responses,respectively(P=0.024).In contrast,it decreased meat stearic(linear:P=0.004),eicosenoic(linear:P=0.004)and eicosadienoic(linear:P=0.025)acid contents.However,OMSS did not affect meat's vaccenic,linoleic,α-linolenic,eicosa-trienoic,total saturated fatty acids(SFAs),polyunsaturated fatty acids(PUFAs),n-3 PUFAs,n-6 PUFAs,and n-6/n-3 PUFA ratios(P＞0.05).In conclusion,dietary OMSS replacement of up to 10％wheat bran increased broiler meat fatness,ash,and MUFAs,as well as immune competence,lipase activity,gizzard weights and FI without altering other performance variables,carcass-visceral traits,haemato-biochemistry,and meat physicochemical quality.