The effect of replacing soya bean meal with cooked &lt;i&gt;Mucuna sloanei&lt;/i&gt; meal on growth performance, carcass characteristics and blood indices of broiler finishers

A.C Esiegwu

doi:10.4314/as.v15i1.7

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to determine the effect of cooked Mucuna sloanei meal (CMSM) on growth performance, carcass characteristics and blood indices of finisher broilers. Mucuna sloanei seeds were processed into meal and analyzed for proximate and phytochemical compositions. The meal was then used to make four broiler finisher diets at 0, 5.0, 10.0 and 15.0% inclusion levels respectively. Each diet was fed to a group of 30 finisher broilers at 5 weeks old for 28 days, using completely randomized design. Each group was further subdivided into three replicates of 10 birds each. There were no treatments effects (p > 0.05) on the average daily body weight gain, average daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio. Cost of production increased as the dietary level of CMSM increased. The organ weight (liver, heart and gizzard) were not affected by treatments (p > 0.05). The carcass characteristics did not show any treatment effect (p > 0.05) for all the parameters measured including dressed weight, breast weight, drum stick, wing, length of intestine etc. Heametologically, only the haemoglobin and red blood cell were significantly decreased (p 0.05). Biochemical indices show that the serum protein and serum creatinine were significantly decreased (p 0.05). It was therefore concluded that 5% inclusion levels of CMSM in the ration of broilers finishers will yield optimum production. Key words: blood indices, broilers, carcass, cooked Mucuna, growth performance

Highlights

Soya bean (Glycin max) is an oil seed legume that is rich in protein and used for both human and animal feeding and for industrial purposes
The crude protein content and nitrogen free extract were similar to the report of Akpata and Miachi (2001) and Opara and Okorie (2015)
The growth performance table shows that there were no significant differences (p > 0.05) in the average daily body weight gain, average daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio for all the various dietary treatments. This is similar to the report of Opara and Okorie (2015). This non-significant difference implies that Mucuna sloanei could serve as an alternative to soya bean at these levels without any deleterious effect

Summary

Introduction

Soya bean (Glycin max) is an oil seed legume that is rich in protein and used for both human and animal feeding and for industrial purposes. It is the major source of protein for non-ruminant feeding, constituting about 20 - 30% level of inclusion in poultry ration (Opara and Okorie, 2015). Igbabul et al (2012) reported that 48-h fermented Mucuna sloanei contains 32.82% crude protein, 8.6% crude fat, 1.0% crude fibre, 1.0% ash and 51.59% carbohydrate. Whereas Akinmutimi et al, (2011) reported a crude protein of 28.96%, crude fat (5.61%), crude fibre (8.11%), ash (4.55%), nitrogen free extract (28.55%) and gross energy (3.94 kcal/g) for toasted Mucuna sloanei. One of the major limiting factors of legume utilization is the presence of anti-nutritional factors (Oke et al, 2002)

Methods

Results

Conclusion