Growth performance, carcass characteristics and economics of production of broiler chickens fed graded levels of seed meal mixed with enzyme

Abstract

One hundred and twenty (120), 1 week old broiler chicken were randomly assigned to 4 treatment diets in a completely randomized experiment that lasted 49 days. The diets were made with soya bean based diet (D1) as control and treatment diets D2, D3, D4 containing graded levels (7.5%, 10%, 12.5%) of boiled Mucuna sloanei seed meal mix with enzyme(BME).Birdsfed diet 2 (7.5% BME) had higher final body weight 2216.70g. The test diets gave lower total feed intake value that was significantly (P<0.05) lower than that of the control. D2 gave the lowestfeed-to-gain ratio (1.72) that was significantly (P<0.05) different fromthoseof the control(2.09), D3 (2.08)and D4 (2.27). There was no significant difference (P>0.05)among birds fed the treatmentdietsand thosefed the control diet for dressed weight percentage and back cut percentage. D2had cost/Kg weight gain and gross margin (N190.44 and N686.97 respectively) that were numerically higher than those of the control (N272.75 and N660.68) but statistically higher than those of, D3(N241.45 and N505.29) and D4 (N274.45 andN387.71). Mucuna seed meal mixed with enzyme in this experiment was 7.5% which performed better than the control in all the parameters considered and is therefore recommended for replacement of soya bean meal in the diet of broiler chickens. Inclusion of Mucuna sloanei seed meal from 10% and above will not yield good carcass that would be comparable to the control (soya bean based diet) Mucunasloanei The optimal level ofinclusion of qualitativereplacementof the soya bean meal with boiled