GROWTH PERFORMANCE, APPARENT NUTRIENT DIGESTIBILITY AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER CHICKENS FED GRADED LEVELS OF SHEA KERNEL (original) (raw)

Forty nine (49) days feeding trial was conducted to investigate the growth performance, carcass characteristics and nutrient digestibility of broilers fed graded levels of shea kernel cake meal with or without probiotic supplementation. Shea kernel cake (SKC), a major by-product of the shea butter or shea nut processing, is rich in carbohydrates and protein, but the presence of anti-nutritional factors, mainly tannin, saponin and theobromine, limits its use as animal feed ingredient. A total of two hundred and ten (210) Arbor acre, seven (7) days old broiler chicks were randomly allotted to seven dietary treatments containing 0, 5, 5+, 10, 10+, 15 and 15+ replacement levels of shea kernel cake meal with or without probiotic designated as T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6 and T7 respectively. The level of the probiotic supplementation (+) was 0.5g/kg. Each treatments was replicated three (3) times with 10 birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. The experimental diets and clean drinking water were provided ad-libitum. The birds were weighed individually at the beginning of the study and weekly thereafter. Parameters measured were body weight and feed intake whereas, weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and feed cost/kg were calculated. At the end of the feeding trial, the faecal samples were collected from 2 birds randomly selected per replicate and placed in a metabolic cage. Also, two birds were selected and slaughtered each for carcass traits evaluation. The proximate composition of the SKC revealed that it contains 93.30, 13.30, 21.00, 10.00, 6.30 and 42.70% dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), crude fibre (CF), ash and nitrogen free extract(NFE) respectively. The result showed significant (P<0.05) treatment effect on feed intake, final weight, weight gain and FCR. The performance of birds was significantly (P<0.05) improved by probiotics (Biovet-YC®) supplementation. The cost per kg feed ranged from N89.56 - N96.81 (T6 to T2). The feed cost and cost/kg gain was lower on shea kernel cake based diets than the control group. The carcass characteristics showed a significant difference (P<0.05) in all the carcass traits except for gizzard weight. Apparent nutrient digestibility was significantly (p<0.05) affected by probiotic supplementation with the exception of EE and NFE digestibility. It can be concluded that shea kernel cake is a potential alternative to dietary maize in term of nutrient value and can replaced it up to 5% but with probiotic supplementation can replace maize up to 10% in broilers ration. Keywords: Growth, carcass, digestibility, shea kernel cake, probiotic, broiler