Performance, carcass characteristics and economics of production of broiler chickens fed jatropha curcas-based diets

Abstract

The high cost of soya bean and groundnut cake is the prime stimulant for the continuing search for alternative feedstuff like Jatropha curcas to reduce cost of feed and animal production.
Therefore, this experiment evaluated the performance and carcass characteristics with economy of production of broiler chickens fed graded levels of processed Jatropha Curcass Seed Meal (JCSM). The JCSM were subjected to three (3) processing methods (boiling, roasting and oven-drying).
A portion of the raw seed was cooked at 100oC for forty five (45) minutes in a cooking pot and sundried for three (3)days.
Second portion of the seed was roasted for about thirty minutes and the last portion of the seed was oven-dried at 65oC for one hour before milling.
A total of one hundred and forty-seven (147) day old Arbor Acre broiler chickens were assigned into seven dietary treatments namely control (T1), 5% boiled (T2), 10% boiled (T3)5% roasted (T4), 10% roasted (T5), 5% oven-dried (T6) and 10% oven-dried (T7) replicated three times of ten birds each.
The feed intake and body weight of the birds were taken weekly.
At the 8th week of the experiment, a bird was selected from each replicate, weighed, slaughtered and dressed.
The organs and carcass parts were separated, weighed and expressed as a percentage of weight of the chicken, the birds fed T1, T2 and T4 and T5 had higher intake than birds fed T3 and T6 and T7. Also, the body weight gain and feed conversion ratio followed the same trend. Birds fed T1had the highest live weight followed by birds fed T4 and T5 while T2 andT3 and T6and T7 gave the lowest live weight. More so, 5% inclusion of JCSM had higher live weight and dressed than 10% inclusion of JCSM. Economic analysis of JCSM based diet was estimated using Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA).
BCA for JCSM treated dietsare1.40,0.68 and 0.71 for roasting while that of boiling control diet was of 1.44.
Hence, it is more economical and profitable to use JCSM treated with roasting to raise commercial birds than to use the conventional feed.