Research Article
Ugwuowo LC, Ezeano CI, Olabode
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of replacing soya bean meal with Moringa oleifera leaf meal in the diet of broiler birds. A total of 72-day old broiler birds were bought from Fidan Company and were randomly allocated to four treatments (T1, T2, T3 and T4) which were replicated three times with six birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. The birds in T1, T2, T3 and T4 were fed with diets containing soya bean meal replaced with Moringa oleifera leaf meal at 0, 15, 30 and 45%, to check the effect on feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio, feed efficiency, feed cost per (kg) weight gain, gross profit, profit, percentage return on investment, and economic efficiency. The experiment lasted for eight weeks. The data obtained were analyzed using one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The result of the experiment showed that there were significant (p<0.05) differences in feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio, feed efficiency of the birds, feed cost per kg weight gain, gross profit, profit, percentage return on investment and economic efficiency. The above parameters except feed cost/kg weight gain, decreased with increasing level of MOLM. Feed cost/kg weight gain increased with increasing level of MOLM. This implies that MOLM should not be used to replace soya bean meal in broiler diets (especially at 15%, 30% and 45%) since the experiment produced negative results in all the parameters measured except mortality which was not recorded at all. Therefore, MOLM can be included at lesser percentage not as a major feed ingredient but as feed additive to reduce mortality of broilers.