RESPONSE OF BROILER CHICKEN FED THREE UNDEFATTED PLANT PROTEIN SOURCES

Abstract

The eight (8) weeks experiment was carried out to evaluate the performance and carcass characteristics of chickens fed three undefatted plant protein sources. One hundred and eighty (180) day old birds were randomly allotted to three dietary treatments in a completely randomized design (CRD). Each treatment had 60 birds with 3 replicate of 20 birds each. Data were collected for performance and carcass characteristics. The performance of chickens fed the three undefatted proteins showed no significant (p>0.05) differences among the treatments, though, chickens on fullfat soyabean meal had the highest weight gain (1220g) and the lowest FCR (2.02). This indicated that the chickens utilized and converted the feed fed to meat. The result for carcass traits showed that chickens on full-fat soybean meal had significantly (p<0.05) higher values for dressed weight, thigh, drumstick, wings, neck, back cavity, breast, gizzard and kidney. It was concluded that the three undefatted protein sources could be included in broiler diets without any detrimental effect on
performance and carcass characteristics but 30% full-fat soyabean meal enhanced carcass yield and efficient nutrient utilization.