Performance and carcass characteristics of broiler finisher fed diets containing water hyacinth meal as a replacement for wheat offal

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the performance and carcass characteristics of broilers finisher fed diets containing water hyacinth meal as a replacement for wheat offal at various inclusion levels. Ninety broiler finisher were used for this study which were allotted equally into three dietary treatments such that Treatment 1 served as the Control without inclusion of water hyacinth meal; Treatment 2 had inclusion of 5% water hyacinth meal and Treatment 3 were served the inclusion of 10% water hyacinth as a replacement for wheat offal respectively in a Completely Randomized Design. Data were collected on performance and carcass characteristics of the chicken, the data were subjected to analysis of variance using SAS. Result revealed that there was no significantly difference (p>0.05) in the initial weight, final weight, total weight gain and average daily weight gain among the control and water hyacinth meal diets. However, there were significant (p<0.05) differences in the feed intake, average daily feed intake and the feed conversion ratio of the experimental birds. There was no significant differences (p>0.05) of the treatments on carcass characteristics of the chicken except in the weight of the head and shank of the chicken. Based on the result obtained, it is therefore concluded that inclusion of water hyacinth meal up to 10% as a replacement for wheat offal in broiler finisher diet did not have effect on growth performance as well as carcass characteristics. Thus it is recommended that further studies could be conducted on increasing the inclusion levels of water hyacinth meal as supplementary diet or replacement of wheat offal in broiler production