Nutrient digestibility, haematology and carcass evaluation of indigenous wild guinea fowl (Numida meleagris galeata pallas) fed graded levels of protein under intensive management.

Abstract

Nutrient digestibility, haematology and the carcass of indigenous wild guinea fowl reared under intensive management were evaluated for 20 weeks. The guinea fowl keets were randomly allotted to 4 treatments groups (designated as Tb T2, T3 and T<) of 2 replicates each. They were fed on a common starter diet containing 24%CP during the brooding period which lasted 8 weeks. After 8 weeks, the birds were fed diets containing 18%, 22%, 24% and 26%CP representing the various treatments. The keets fed the 24%CP diet were used as the control after the brooding period. Results show that the treatment significantly affected (p<0.05) dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and ether extract (EE) digestibility while crude fibre (CF) and Nitrogen free extract (NFE) digestibility were not affected (p>0.05) at the end of the experiment. The haematological indices measured were not affected (p>0.05) by the treatments. Evaluation of the cut-up parts of the carcass showed that the neck, drumstick, thigh, leg and head were not significantly affected (p>0.05) while the live weight, slaughtered weight, dressed weight, back, wing and breast were affected (p<0.05) by the treatment. It was concluded that feeding indigenous wild guinea fowls kept under intensive management graded levels of protein led to marked differences in their ability to utilize nutrients, their blood constitution as well as their carcass quality.