Growth performance, blood parameters and production cost of broiler chickens fed dietary sweet orange peel meal diets with and without enzyme addition

Abstract

The growth performance, blood parameters and production cost of two hundred and fifty two (252) Abor acre plus broiler chickens fed sweet orange peel meal (SOPM) with and without enzymes were investigated. The experimental diets consist of control (T₀), maize was replaced with SOPM at 15, 20 and 25 % without exogenous enzymes to form T₁ , T₂ and T₃ respectively, and another supplemented with exogenous enzyme to form T₄ , T₅ and T₆ respectively. The birds were randomly allocated to seven treatment groups replicated three times to have 12 birds per replicate and were fed experimental diet ad-libitum for eight weeks. Result showed that broiler chickens fed control diet (T₀) had significantly (P<0.05) higher final weight (FW) of 2.44kg, weight gain (WG) of 42.91, feed intake (FI) of 86.53, better feed conversion ratio (FCR)of 2.01 and protein conversion ratio (PCR)of 0.44 compared to other dietary treatments. Broiler chickens fed T₁ and T₄ had significantly (P<0.05) higher final weight of 1.98 and 1.98 kg, weight gain of 34.69 and 34.71 g and feed intake of 78.35 and 81.63 g respectively while significantly (P<0.05) least values of 1.75 and 1.80 kg final weight, 30.73 and 31.49 g weight gain and 69.47 and 71.84 g feed intake respectively were recorded in broiler chickens fed T₂ and T₅. Haematological indices namely: PCV, RBC, WBC and Hb were not significantly different (P>0.05) but MCV, MCH, MCHC, lymphocytes, heterophil, eosinophil and monocytes differed significantly (P<0.05). Serum biochemical indices namely total protein, albumin, globulin and uric acid were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by the experimental diets. Though, there was no detrimental effect of SOPM and enzyme on production cost as profit was made at all replacement levels of SOPM with and without enzyme treatment, but profit per bird (₦) and cost to benefit ratio revealed the superiority of the broiler chickens fed control diet (T₀). Based on the results obtained, SOPM can replace maize up to 25 % without posing any deleterious effect on the broiler chickens growth performance, blood parameters and production cost. However, the cost to benefit ratio was compromised with the use of SOPM.

Keywords: broiler; performance; orange peel; polyzyme^®; blood parameters; economics