GROWTH RESPONSE OF BROILER FINISHERS FED GRADED LEVELS OF BITTER MELON (Momordica charantia) LEAF MEAL-BASED DIETS

Abstract

A total of 120 Anak broiler strain of 28 days old were used for the study. Four experimental diets were formulated such that the control treatment (T₀) had no Bitter melon leaf meal (BMLM), while treatments 1, 2 and 3 contained 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5% of BMLM replacing of soya bean meal. Thirty birds were assigned to each treatment group with three replicates in a complete randomized design and each replicates had 10 birds. The BMLM on analysis revealed the presence of Crude protein (29.62+1.30%), crude fibre (5.14±0.21%), crude fat (1.10±0.11%), nitrogen free extract (NFE) (35.83+0.30%) and ash (15.14±0.10%) as nutrients constituents. The data generated from the feeding trial showed that there were significant differences (P<0.05) across the various treatments: To, T₁, T₂ and T₃ in mean feed consumption and weight gain. The highest body weight of 2.40kg recorded from birds on T₂ (5.0% BMLM) show that the test ingredient can successfully be incorporated into broiler feed formulation to as high as 5% level replacement for soya bean meal, without any deleterious effect on biological productivity.