Optimum Level of Utilization of Cooked Sweet Potato Meal (Ipomoea Batatas Lam) in Broiler Chicken Diets.
ABSTRACT
Proximate composition of cooked sweet potato meal (CSPM) was determined using AOAC (1990) methods. Four experiments were conducted with two set of birds. The first two experiments were carried out to determine the optimum level of utilization of cooked sweet potato meal (CSPM) in broiler diets and the variety of preference in the second experiments.
Two hundred and seventy-one-week old broiler chicks (hubbard breed) with an average weight of 93g were randomly allotted to six dietary treatments during experiment 1, with three replicates of 15 birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Experimental Design. The experimental diets consisted of six levels of weight for weight substitution of maize with CSPM at 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50% respectively.
Results showed that at the starter phase birds on 5.4% CSPM diet had higher weights than all the other treatments including the control diet in terms of final weight, total weight gain, daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio. At the finisher phase, significant differences (P>0.05) were noted in the final weight, weight gain, daily weight gain, feed conversion ratio and feed cost as the level of CSPM increased in the diet.
Growth performance was significantly depressed even at 10% CSPM replacement for maize. The carcass analysis also showed significant differences (P>0.05) in most parameters, but there was no clear-cut trend except for the weight of liver that increased as the level of CSPM exceeded 10%. Dietary inclusion of CSPM significantly reduced the digestibility of DM, CF, EE and ash.
INTRODUCTION
Livestock play a very important role in the Nigerian economy contributing about 12.7% of the agricultural GDP (CBN, 1999). The Nigerian livestock population comprised of about 14 million cattle, 34.5 million goats, 22.1 million sheep, 114.3 million poultry, 0.9 million donkeys, 0.2 million horses, 0.09 million camels, 3.3 million cats, 1.7 million rabbits, 0.5 million guinea pigs, and 0.06 million giant rats (RIM, 1992).
It is a common knowledge that meals without any piece of meat are a regular diet for a larger proportion of Nigerians. Nigerians consume less than 10g of protein per person per day out of which only about 3.2g is animal protein. This falls short of the FAO’s recommended daily intake of 30g per caput per day (Dafwang, 2006). The high cost of animal protein in developing countries is the major constraint militating against the availability of the much-needed high quality protein food for the low-income people.
An increase in the standard of living almost inevitably calls for an increase in demand for animal protein. This situation calls for the production of fast-growing animals like poultry. (Balogun, et al., 2003). As laudable as poultry is in bridging animal protein gap in Nigeria, the industry faces a lot of problems. The most important problem is sub-standard nutrition which needs urgent attention. This is because the production potential of birds depends mainly on the type of feed given (Egbewande, 2009).
Good quality food is one of the reasons for livestock production, it involves the wise use of available feed ingredients in formulating a palatable, economical, and nutritionally balanced ration for livestock and poultry (Cole, 1966). Reduction in the cost of poultry feeds is by far the most important focus of researchers at least in the developing countries today (Oyedeji, et al., 2003). Ayuk and Essien (2009) observed that feed gulps more than 80% of the total cost of running any poultry enterprise.
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