Performance of growing turkeys fed diets containing varying levels of honey

Abstract

A fifteen-weeks feeding trial was conducted to determine the growth performance of growing turkey fed with diets containing varying levels of honey. Forty five growing turkey were randomly allotted to three treatments and three replicates, each having five birds arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD) experiment. Three diets were formulated such that diet 1 contained no honey (0 %) and served as the control, while diet 2 and 3 contained 2 % and 4 % level of honey respectively. The birds were fed the experimental diets for 15 weeks during which time data were collected on feed intake and weight gain. At the 6th week of the experiment, a digestibility trial was carried out using specially-designed metabolic cages. The results obtained shows that birds fed diet containing 4 % honey inclusion performed better in terms of final body weight (3218.33g), daily body weight gain (28.39g) and feed conversion ratio (6.39) than those fed other diets though the values were not significantly (p>0.05) different. There were no significant (p>0.05) differences in the digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, crude fibre and ash; but the digestibility of nitrogen free extract was significantly (p<0.05) higher (97.76 %). Therefore, it can be concluded that honey can be included up to 4 % in the diets of growing turkey with optimum performance.