Performance and nutrient utilization of diets containing raw, boiled or dehulled pigeonpea seed meals (Cajanusc cajan) fed to broiler finishers

Abstract

One hundred and eighty, 4-week old broilers were used to study the performance of broiler finishers fed diets containing raw, boiled or dehulled pigeonpea seed meals included at levels of 30 and 40% of the diets in a 3 x 2 factorially designed experiment. Performance criteria were daily weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio (FCR), protein efficiency ratio (PER), nutrient utilization and final liveweight of the broilers at the end of 8^th week. Results showed that dehulled seed meal diet produced broilers with the highest daily weight gain, final liveweight and protein efficiency ratio, lowest feed intake, FCR and daily protein intake. Broilers fed boiled seed meal diet performed significantly better than those fed raw seed meal diet in all measurements. Broilers fed on 30% inclusion level of PPSM gave better results than those on 40% which significantly depressed growth rate, feed conversion efficiency, protein efficiency and increased protein intake. The interaction between processing methods and inclusion levels were not significant. There was a higher nutrient utilization of dehulled and boiled PPSM diets by broilers than the raw seed meal. Increase in the level of inclusion generally decreased protein retention except for the dehulled PPSM diet. It is concluded that a better option is to dehull boiled pigeonpea seeds and include the meal at not more than 30% of the whole ration for broiler finishers.

Keywords: Pigeonpea seeds meal, dehulling, cooking and other processing methods of grain broiler finisher, nutrient utilization.