Growth, Hematology and Serology of Broiler Chickens Fed Different Cultivars of Sorghum as Replacement for Maize in the Semi-Arid Zone of Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3923/ijps.2011.608.612Keywords:
Broiler chickens, maize, performance, sorghum grainAbstract
An experiment was conducted at the University of Maiduguri Poultry Research Farm to investigate the total replacement of maize grain with different cultivars of sorghum in broiler finisher diets. Two hundred and forty broiler chickens aged 28 days weighing 540.96±9.26 g were randomly allotted to 24 pens. Six finisher diets containing 20% crude protein were formulated for the experiment. Diet 1 (control) was based on maize which was replaced in the other diets by one of five cultivars of sorghum grain. Each of the diets was fed to 4 randomly selected pens of 10 birds per pen using a completely randomized design. Feed intake, weight gain and final body weight were all reduced (p<0.05) on the sorghum-based diets compared to the control. These values were further reduced (p<0.05) on the Tumbuna sorghum compared to the other sorghum diets. Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) however, did not show any superiority (p>0.05) of the control over the other diets. The hematological and serum biochemical parameters did not show any advantage of maize over the sorghum grains. It was concluded that although total replacement of maize with the sorghum grains has no apparent effects on the health of finishing broiler chickens, it is not beneficial when growth is the major performance response evaluated.
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