Nutritive evaluation of different energy sources in broiler chicken diets under the tropical climate of Nigeria

Abstract

This study was aimed at evaluating the nutritive value of different sources of energy in broiler chicken diets on the growth performance and haematological parameters of broiler chickens. Five isonitrogenous and isocaloric diets (23.17% CP; 2831 Kcal/ME; 21.73% CP; 2929Kcal/ME) for the broiler starter (0-4 weeks) and finisher phases (5-8 weeks), respectively were formulated. Treatment 1 is the control diet while treatments 2, 3, 4 and 5were sorghum, pearl millet, cassava and sweet potatoes based diets, respectively. A total of 225, 1 day-old NAPRI X broiler chicks were randomly allotted to the five treatments with three replicates each in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Data were subjected to ANOVAα0.05 . The results showed that final bodyweights (503.44 g and 2302.77 g), feed intake (819.67 g and 3073.70 g) and weight gained (453.61 g and 1892.07 g) were significantly (P<0.05) higher in birds fed millet diets (T3) than other treatments for both starter and finisher phases, respectively. T3 (millet based diet) recorded significantly (P<0.05) the best feed conversion ratio (1.62) and the lowest feed cost per kg weight gain (145.90) at the finiser phase while chicks fed the control (maize based diet (T1) and sorghum (T2) based diet gave similar (P>0.05) values as those fed T3 (millet based diets). Birds fed diet T5 (sweet potatoes) gave significantly (P<0.05) lowest values in all parameters measured and poor feed conversion ratio at the starter phase. Similar pattern was also observed in the finisher phase except in feed intake and mortality which were comparable with other dietary treatment. Dietary treatments had significant (P<0.05) effect on white and red blood cells of broiler birds fed different energy sources. Millet based diet was the best in terms of nutritive value and also in terms of cost of production without compromising productivity in broiler chickens. It is also recommended that other methods of processing millet should be exploited.