Abstract
The high cost of poultry feedstuffs has led to the use of tropical root and tuber crops to formulate the balanced and low cost poultry diets. However, utilization of feeds compounded from roots and tubers has been low due to some identified anti-nutritional factors such as cyanide in cassava and high sugar levels in sweet potato which cause diarrhea in chicken. Furthermore, the few studies done on them have been on animals’ performance in terms of feed intake/weight gain, with little or no emphasis on the effect of such feeds on the animals’ reproductive performance. A completely randomized block experimental design was carried out to evaluate the effect of diets containing differently processed sweet potato tuber on the fertility and reproductive performance of broiler breeder cocks. Though, the values for semen characteristics were lower in sweet potato-based diets than the maize-based diet, they fell within the recommended levels for the tropics. Grated sweet potato (GP25) had the least semen volume (0.16 ± 0.04 cm3) while least sperm concentration (2.68 ± 0.44 × 109/cm3) and sperm output (0.44 ± 0.14 × 109/ml) were obtained in thinly sliced sweet potato (SP25). Percentage of eggs fertilized was highest in GP25 and least in Fermented sweet potato (FP25). Thus, breeder cocks are potentially fertile when fed on diets formulated with sweet potato tuber and that sweet potato tubers may be used as a good substitute for maize in poultry feed when grated or when fermented. Key words: Breeder cocks, fertility, semen characteristics, sweet potato
Highlights
Livestock feeds contribute about 75 to 80% of the total cost of producing poultry to market (Tewe, 1996)
The objectives of this study were to reduce the sugar content of sweet potato using standard processing techniques, and to formulate breeder cock diets based on the processed sweet potato, evaluate the fertility and semen characteristics of the breeder cocks fed on the sweet potato-based diets
Values on proximate analysis for crude protein, crude fibre, ether extract, ash and gross energy as well as total sugar and dry matter contents are presented on Table 1
Summary
Livestock feeds contribute about 75 to 80% of the total cost of producing poultry to market (Tewe, 1996). Chicken production in Cameroon, like other Sub-Saharan African countries, has not kept pace with the demand due to high feed costs and feed ingredients, leading to the importation of frozen chicken from Western Europe to the tune of 24,478 tons per year (Anon, 2004) This has a direct consequence on the indigenous farms, for instance in Cameroon, where 92% of small scale producers (farms with less than 500 chicks) identified in 1996, had ceased activity in 2002 (Anon, 2004). There is need to look for local and readily available alternatives to substitute maize which is the major energy source in poultry feed This problem could be solved by introducing less expensive local feed ingredients like cassava and sweet potato in poultry feed formulations to Etchu et al 83 Treatment.
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