Growth performance, nutrient digestibility and gut morphology of cockerels fed diets containing varying levels of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) milling waste meal

Abstract

Three hundred (300) one-week old Bovan Nera cockerel chicks were used to investigate the effect of feeding diets containing varying levels of cowpea milling waste meal (CMWM) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and gut morphology of cockerels. The birds were randomly allocated to five dietary treatments, with three replicates per treatment made up of twenty birds per replicate, in a completely randomized design experiment. The treatments were 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 % dietary inclusion levels of CMWM and were tagged CMWM0, CMWM10, CMWM20, CMWM30 and CMWM40 respectively. The experiment lasted for eight weeks and data on growth performance were taken. At the end of the 7th week of the experiment, a nutrient digestibility trial was carried out. Two birds per replicate were selected and placed in specially constructed metabolism cages for seven days; three days to acclimatize them and four days for faecal collection. Gut morphology data were taken at the termination of the feeding trial at the 8th week of the experiment. One bird was selected per replicate and slaughtered by cervical dislocation and the internal organs weighed. Results show that birds on CMWM30 had the highest feed intake (1531.67) and the ones on CMWM0 had the lowest (1120.46); birds on CMWM30 had the highest final bodyweight (428.47) and the ones on CMWM0 had the lowest (354.57). FCR results indicated that birds on CMWM10 (3.28) and CMWM0 (3.55) were better than those on CMWM30 (4.07). The dietary treatments had effect (P<0.05) on dressing % and weight of GIT, small intestine, large intestine and lungs. Result of digestibility trial show that dietary treatments had no effect on the digestibility of the nutrients by the birds. Therefore, it is recommended that up to 40 % of CMWM can be included in the diets of cockerels with no detrimental effects on their growth performance and nutrient digestibility but better gut morphology was obtained with CMWM20 .