Growth performance and nutrient digestibility of cockerels fed diets containing varying levels of water hyacinth {Eichhornia crassipes (Martius) Solms-Laubach} meal supplemented with exogenous enzymes

Abstract

A six weeks’ feeding trial was conducted on 288 two-weeks’-old Black Harco cockerel chicks to evaluate their growth performance when fed diets containing water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) meal (WHM) at 0, 100, and 200 g//kg dietary inclusion levels, with no exogenous enzymes supplementation (Diet 1, Diet 2 and Diet 3 respectively) and then with exogenous enzymes (Maxigrain®) supplementation (Diet 4, Diet 5 and Diet 6 respectively); as a replacement for wheat offal (WO). The birds were randomly allocated to the six dietary treatments, with three replicates per diet and 16 chicks per replicate, and fed ad-libitum for six weeks. At the end of the feeding trial, three birds per replicate were randomly selected, removed from the floor and placed in metabolism cages for digestibility studies. They were kept in the cages for three days to enable them adjust adequately to the conditions in the cages, followed by faecal collection that lasted for four days. Results show that there were no significant (P>0.05) differences in initial body weight, final body weight, average body weight gain, total body weight gain, total feed intake, feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio between birds fed 0, 10 and 20 % dietary inclusion levels of WHM. There were no significant (P>0.05) enzyme and water hyacinth level interactions for these parameters, indicating that exogenous enzymes addition did not significantly (P>0.05) affect feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio in cockerels fed WHM diets. Crude fibre digestibility decreased significantly (P<0.05) as the dietary WHM increased, indicating decreased utilization; while the exogenous enzymes addition increased the digestibility of the nutrients. It is therefore concluded that based on growth performance parameters, WHM can effectively replace WO 100 % in the diets of cockerels without exogenous enzymes addition; however, better nutrient digestibility are obtained when the WHM-based diets are treated with exogenous enzymes..