Abstract:
A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of substituting maize with different levels of sweet potato tuber meal (SWPTM) on feed intake, weight gain, and feed conversion ratio (FCR) and mortality percentage of broiler chicks. One hundred ninety two Cobb 500 broiler chick strains with initial weight of 35.64±0.37 (mean± SD) grams were randomly distributed to four treatments each with three replications in a completely randomized design. At the end of the trial, three broilers were randomly picked up from each replication and slaughtered for carcass evaluation. The four treatment diets used were ration contain 0% (T1), 15% (T2), 30% (T3), and 45% (T4) of SWPTM to replace maize. The SWPTM contain 8.32% CP and 3650.6 ME Kcal/Kg DM. The average daily feed intake during the entire experiment period was71.1, 91, 95.5 and 97.7 gram per bird (SEM=0.77) for T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively, and higher for T4 as compared to T1, T2 and T3 and lower for T1 as compared to the rest of treatments (p<0.05) indicating feed intake increased with increasing level of SWPTM. The body weight gain during the entire experimental period was 31.35, 45.23, 35.91 and 35.39 gram per bird/day (SEM=0.89) for T1, T2, T3 and T4 respectively, and higher for T2 as compared to T1, T3 and T4. The feed conversion ratio during the entire period was 2.21, 1.98, 2.60 and 2.7 (SEM = 0.05) for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively and better for T2 as compared to T1, T3 and T4. Carcass weight was 911.38, 1439.60, 1130.86 and 1024.16 gm (SEM=61.530) for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively, and it was high in T2 than other treatments. The average weight of abdominal fat was 8.6, 11.23, 1.6 and 0.00 gram per bird (SEM = 1.58) for T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively, which decreased with increasing level of SWPTM. There was no significant differences (P>0.05) in almost all organs weight. The percent mortality of broilers for the entire growth period showed non-significant difference (P>0.05) among treatment which showed that substitution of SWPTM for maize in the diets of broiler had no adverse effect on the chicks’ survival rate. Based on the result of the experiment, it can be concluded that SWPTM substitution for maize at 15% in broiler chicks’ diet enhanced overall performance. Further study to understand mechanism of fat reduction effect of increasing sweet potato meal is imperative.
