Effect of replacing complete grower diet with ground Prosopis juliflora pods on performance of improved indigenous chicken in Kenya

Abstract

Ninety-six KALRO improved chicken (KIC) aged 8 weeks were used to study the effect of feeding diets incorporated with different levels of ground Prosopis juliflora pods (GPJP) on growth performance. A commercial grower feed, without GPJP, was used as the control diet. Experimental diets were formulated by replacing the commercial diet with GPJP at 0% (PJP-0), 10% (PJP-10), 20% (PJP-20) and 30 % (PJP-30). A Completely Randomized Design (CRD) was used with the four dietary treatments that were iso-nitrogenous and iso-caloric. Feed intake and live weight gains were monitored for eleven weeks and used to calculate feed conversion ratio (FCR). Two birds from each pen were slaughtered to measure different parts carcass weights. There was reduced feed intake and live weight gain for chicken offered PJP-30 as compared to chicken offered all the other levels of GPJP. Pullets offered PJP-30 diet had higher FCR than pullets offered PJP-10, PJP-20 and PJP-30. In cockerels, PJP-20 had the lowest DCW. PJP-10 and PJP-20 had similar Eviscerated weight but lower than PJP-0 and higher than PJP30. Breast weight was similar inPJP-0 and PJP-20 but lower than in PJP-10 with PJP-30 having the lowest Breast weight. PJP-0 had similar Leg weight as PJP-20 but lower than PJP-10. The highest level of GPJP inclusion (PJP-30) had the lowest Leg weight. In pullets, increasing the levels of GPJP had similar effect on dressed cold weight, Eviscerated weight, Breast weight, Leg weight and Wing percentage apart from PJP-20 that had lower weights that PJP-0. Diets with 20% and 30 % of GPJP were the least cost diets for pullets and cockerels respectively. Cockerels utilized higher levels of GPJP in the diet more efficiently than the pullets. Therefore, it is concluded that GPJP can be included at the level of 20% in the diets of both pullets and cockerels without affecting their performance at the least cost.