). Effects of anaerobic fermentation lyle treatment of Delonix regia meal on performance of finisher broilers

Abstract

An experiment was conducted using 120 day-old Hubbard broiler birds to evaluate the effects of anaerobic fermentation and lyle treatment of Delonix regid seed meal on the performance of finisher broilers. Four treatment diets designated Ti, T2, T3 and T4 were compounded with Ti representing 0% anaerobically fermented and lyle treated Delonix seed meal, T2 represents 5% untreated raw Delonix seed meal, while T3 and T4 represent 5% and 7.5% anaerobically fermented and lyle treated Delonix seed meal respectively. Experimental design used was the completely randomized design. Results showed that the treatments did not significantly (p>0.05) affect body weight and feed conversion ratio but significantly (p<0.05) affected feed intake and body weight gain. Dry matter, crude fiber and ash digestibility were not significantly affected (p>0.05), while crude protein, ether extract and Nitrogen Free Extract digestibility were affected (p<0.05) by the treatment diets. The inclusion of anaerobically fermented and lyle treated Delonix regia seed meal in the diet affected (p<0.05) the head, crop, intestine and the lungs, while the neck, gizzard, heart, kidney, liver, thigh, drumstick, back, breast and wing were not affected (p>0.05) significantly. It was concluded that anaerobic fermentation followed by lyle treatment of Delonix regia seed meal makes it suitable for use as a substitute for groundnut cake in finisher broiler diet.