Performance and Economic Characteristics of Broilers Fed Varying Dietary Levels of Neem Leaf Meal (Azadirachta indica)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3923/ijps.2009.256.259Keywords:
Broilers, neem leaf, performanceAbstract
The performance and economic indices of broilers fed varying dietary levels of sun dried Neem Leaf Meal (NLM) were investigated using ninety ‘Ross’ unsexed two weeks old broilers. The birds were randomly assigned to five treatment groups of eighteen birds each in which NLM was incorporated at 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2% for treatments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Each treatment was further replicated twice with nine birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. Results showed that treatment effect on Average Final Body Weight (AFBW), Average Daily Gain (ADG), Average Daily Feed Intake [ADFI] and Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) were significant (P<0.05). Birds on the 0.5% NLM had significantly (P<0.05) superior AFBW, ADG and FCR. ADFI of birds on the 0.5% NLM was statistically the same with the control birds but differed from the rest treatments on NLM. Gross margin analysis reveals that a profit of N707.30 is made per bird on the 0.5% NLM as against N630.97, N620.73, N621.81 and N507.06 for birds on the control, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0% NLM respectively. It is concluded that inclusion of 0.5% NLM in the diets of broilers will support optimum performance and economic benefit.
References
Dorak, M.T., 2001. Real-time PCR. Methods, 25: 1-8.
Heine, H.G., L. Trinidad, P. Selleck and S. Lowther, 2007. Rapid detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus by taqman reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Avian Dis., 51: 370-372.
Jackwood, M.W., D.A. Hilt and S.A. Callison, 2003. Detection of infectious bronchitis virus by real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and identification of a quasispecies in the Beaudette strain. Avian Dis., 47: 718-724.
Lee, C.W., D.L. Suarez, T.M. Tumpey, H.W. Sung and Y.K. Kwon et al., 2005. Characterization of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza A viruses isolated from South Korea. J. Virol., 79: 3692-3702.
Ng, E.K.O., P.K. Cheng, A.Y. Ng, T.L. Hoang and W.W. Lim, 2005. Influenza a H5N1 detection. Emerg. Infect. Dis., 11: 1303-1305.
Spackman, E., D.A. Senne, T.J. Myers, L.L. Bulaga and L.P. Garber et al., 2002. Development of a real-time reverse transcriptase PCR assay for type A Influenza virus and the Avian H5 and H7 hemagglutinin subtypes. J. Clin. Microbiol., 40: 3256-3260.
Spackman, E., D.A. Senne, L.L. Bulaga, T.J. Myers and M. Perdue et al., 2003. Development of real-time RT-PCR for the detection of avian influenza virus. Avian Dis., 47: 1079-1082.
Yuen, K.Y., P.K.S. Chan, M. Peiris, D.N.C. Tsang and T.L. Que et al., 1998. Clinical features and rapid viral diagnosis of human disease associated with avian influenza A H5N1 virus. Lancet, 351: 467-471.
Payungporn, S., S. Chutinimitkul, A. Chaisingh, S. Damrongwantanapokin and C. Buranathai et al., 2006. Single step multiplex real-time RT-PCR for H5N1 influenza A virus detection. J. Virol. Methods, 131: 143-147.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2009 Asian Network for Scientific Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
