INTERNAL ORGANS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER CHICKENS FED DIETS CONTAINING COCOA SEED POWDER DURING DRY SEASON

Abstract

Heat stress is one of the major stressors affecting the production of broiler during dry season, which could trigger changes in intestinal organs of broilers. This study was conducted to determine the internal organ characteristics of broiler chickens fed diets containing cocoa seed powder. One hundred and ninety-two (192) Cobb-500, two week old broilers were randomly allotted into four dietary treatments with three (3) replicates of sixteen (16) birds each. At eighth week of the experiment, two birds were randomly selected, slaughtered, processed and eviscerated. Weights of liver, heart, gizzard with and without content, kidney, lung, proventriculus, spleen and bile were taken. Intestinal weight and length were also determined. The results of internal organ characteristics revealed no significantly (P>0.05) effects across the treatments. The values recorded for all the parameters varied among the treatments except the gastro-intestinal track length that showed slight numerical increase with increased levels of cocoa powder in the diets. The ranges for liver, kidney, lung, spleen and GIT length were 1.21 – 1.41g, 0.27 – 0.31, 0.36 – 0.95g, 0.04 – 0.05g and 183 – 215.00cm, respectively. It was concluded that dietary supplementation of cocoa seed powder up to 15g per kilogramme in commercial diets was not detrimental to internal organs of broiler chickens.