GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF COCKEREL OFFERED ORAL ADMINISTRATION OF SOLE AQUEOUS EXTRACTS OF SCENT LEAF AND Sida acuta

Abstract

One hundred and thirty-five 26-day old cockerels were used to evaluate the effects of aqueous leaf extracts of scent leaf and Sida acuta on growth performance of starter and grower cockerels. Cockerels were randomly distributed into 5 treatment groups of 3 replicates per group. There were 9 birds in each replicate and 27 birds in a treatment. A corn soybean meal-based diet was the basal diet formulated to contain chick mash (2868.98Kcal/kg and 18.66%CP) and grower mash (2769.71Kcal/kg and 17.48% CP). Oral administration of antibiotics (Gali Fura Care Plus®) and coccidiostat (Q-Cox®) served as the control. Other treatment groups were offered aqueous leaf extracts of scent leaf at 25ml/l and 50ml/l in drinking water for T1 and T2, respectively. Oral administration of aqueous of S. acuta at 20ml/l and40ml/l were given to the birds in treatment T3 andT4, respectively. The aqueous leaf extract containing 40ml/L of Sida acuta had the highest (99.09mg/100g) phytate, (69.94mg/100g) tannins, (96.48mg/100g) flavonoid, (31.49mg/100g) steroid and (36.39mg/100g) terpenoid. In the grower phase, oral administration of aqueous leaf extracts of scent leaf and Sida acuta significantly influenced feed conversion ratio (P=0.033), with the best (1.90) observed in cockerels offered 25ml/L of scent leaf. It is hereby recommended that aqueous leaf extract of 25 ml/L of scent leaf should be given to cockerels as an alternative to antibiotics and coccidiostat for improved feed conversion ratio