Dietary potency of sun-dried turmeric powder on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and cost analysis of starter broiler chicks

Abstract

The present study was carried out to assess the dietary potency of sun-dried turmeric (Curcuma longa) powder on the performance of the broiler chicks. A total of one hundred and twenty (120) day old abor acre plus chicks were randomly allocated to four (4) dietary treatments each with three replicates of ten (10) chicks. Four experimental diets were formulated in such a way that the control diet (T1) did not contain turmeric powder whereas birds in T2, T3 and T4 fed diets contained 0.20, 0.25 and 0.30% turmeric powder respectively. The feeding trial lasted for 28 days and parameters on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and cost analysis were evaluated. Proximate analysis showed that turmeric powder possesses some nutrients which make it nutritionally viable as a feed additive in the broiler chick diet. There were no significant differences among all the growth performance parameters evaluated across the dietary treatments. Broiler chicks fed 0.30% turmeric recorded numerically best value in terms of body weight and feed conversion ratio compared to other treatments including control. No significant difference was observed in nutrient utilization across the treatment groups. Turmeric powder resulted in efficient feed cost reduction, and among the treatments, the diet with 0.30 % of turmeric powder provides a better economic advantage in terms of feed cost per weight gain. It is concluded that supplementation of turmeric powder up to 0.30% as feed additives in broiler chicks’ diet had no negative impact on growth performance, nutrient utilization and production cost of the abor acre plus breed of chicks.