Performance Egg Quality Characteristics and Serum Biochemistry of Laying Birds Fed Diet Containing Neem Leaf Meal
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This study was designed broadly to determine the effect of incorporating neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf meal in layers’ diet on egg production, egg quality characteristics and serum biochemistry of laying birds. Specifically, the objectives of the study were to evaluate the:
- egg laying performance of birds fed with diets containing different levels of neem leaf meal (NLM),
- the economics of production of the eggs by birds fed diets containing different levels of NLM
- internal and external quality characteristics of the eggs laid by the birds, serum biochemistry of the laying birds
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATUREREVIEW
PLACE OF DOMESTIC CHICKEN IN MEAT SUPPLY
The domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red jungle fowl (Eriksson et al., 2008). As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003 there are more chickens in the world than any other species of birds (Yousaf and Chaudry, 2008). Man keeps chicken primarily as a source of food, consuming both their meat and their eggs. The chicken’s “cultural and culinary dominance” could be considered amazing to some in view of its believed domestic origin and purpose and it has inspired contributions to culture, art, cuisine science and religion from antiquity to the present (Eriksson et al., 2008).
Man first domesticated chickens of Indian origin for the purpose of cock fighting in Asia, Africa and Europe. Very little formal attention was given to egg or meat production (Ling-Bin et al., 2012). From India the domesticated fowl made its way to the Persianized kingdom of Lybia in Western Asian Minor, and domestic chicken was imported to Greece by the fifth century BC (Garrigus, 2007).
Globally, production of the primary poultry products (meat and eggs) has been raising rapidly. This reflects consumption based in turn, on consumer preference for these high quality products and the relatively low price because of efficiency of production (Obioha, 1992). Over a 10 years period between 1995 and 2005, consumption and hence production has increased (percentage increase) for chicken meat (53%), turkey meat (13%), duck meat (67%), goose meat (53%), chicken egg (39%) and other eggs (27%) (Yousaf and Chaudry, 2008). Globally, total egg production was 78% (by weight) of poultry meat production (Weggemans et al., 2001). There has been a major growth in production of other livestock with global production of pork up to 28% and that of beef up to 11%. However, these increases are less than that observed for poultry meat such that today, poultry meat represents almost one-third of meat produced and consumed globally (Oluyemi and Robert, 2007).
CHAPTER THREE
MATERIALS AND METHOD
LOCATION AND DURATION OF STUDY
The research was carried out at the Poultry Unit of the Department of Animal Production Technology Farm (APT), Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu, Ebonyi State. Ishiagu is located on longitude 7031’east and latitude 5055′ north with an annual mean rainfall of 1655mm and average temperature of 280C and average relative humidity of 88% (FCAI, Meteorological Centre Data, 2012). The study lasted for twelve months from February 2012 to January 2013.
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CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS
PROXIMATE COMPOSITION OF NEEM LEAF MEAL (ON DRY MATTER BASIS)
Data on the proximate composition of neem leaf meal (NLM) in the study are presented in Table 8. The results showed that the processed neem leaf meal had a crude protein content of 21.76%, crude fibre content of 17.81%, ether extract content of 3.68%, ash content of 7.04% and nitrogen free extract content of 49.71%.
CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION
PROXIMATECOMPOSITION OF NEEM LEAF MEAL (NLM)
Results of the nutrient composition of neem leaf meal used in the study revealed that the neem leaf meal displayed similar characteristics with leaf meals from other tropical browse plants namely; high crude fibre and moderate crude protein content, reported for Jacaranda mimosifolia (Okorie, 2006; Olabode et al., 2013; Egbewande et al., 2004; Esonu et al., 2002). The level of crude protein (19.65%) obtained in this study was higher than 18.10% reported by Obikaonu et al. (2011) working with neem leaf meal and starter broiler birds. It was however slighly lower than 20.68% which Ogbuewu et al. (2010) and Esonu et al. (2006) reported while working with neem leaf meal in layers. The crude fibre value of 16.08% obtained falls within the value of 15.56% reported by Obikaonu et al. (2011) and 16.60% reported by Ogbuewu et al. (2010). The ash content of 6.36% when compared with 7.10% reported by Ogbuewu et al. (2010) and Esonu et al. (2006) was slightly lower, but higher than 5.62% obtained by Obikaonu et al. (2011). Ether extract value of 3.32% was within the range of 2.50% and 4.13% reported by Obikaonu et al. (2011) and Esonu et al. (2006). Thus, neem leaf meal could possibly compete with other tropical plants in livestock production.
CHAPTER SIX
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
SUMMARY
The present experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of incorporating neem (Azadirachta indica) leaf meal in layers’ diet on egg production, egg quality characteristics and serum biochemistry of laying birds. The proximate composition of neem leaf meal on dry matter basis was determined. The performance of the birds fed graded levels of neem leaf meal at levels of 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8% of diet was investigated; also the internal and external egg qualities and serum biochemical indices of the birds were evaluated. The experimental diets were formulated to be isocaloric and isonitrogenous in nature and were fed to the birds. A completely randomized design (CRD) was used in the arrangement of experiment with five treatments and each treatment was replicated three times. Each treatment had sixty randomly distributed laying birds, with twenty birds per replicate. Daily feed intake was taken and initial and final weights of the birds were also documented. Blood samples were collected from the birds prior to completion of the experiment to determine the serum biochemical indices of the birds. The data obtained from the experiments were subjected to analysis of variance in CRD according to SAS (2000) and the separation of means was done by the method of Duncan’s New Multiple Range Tests as outlined by Obi (2002).
The result of proximate analysis of neem leaf meal (NLM) showed that the processed neem leaf has similar characteristics with those of other processed leaf meal comprising moderate crude protein level of 18.50-22.50% and high crude fibre of 15.80-17.20%. The average daily feed intake, average final body weight, average body weight change, feed conversion ratio, average egg production and hen day egg production were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by dietary treatment. It was observed that increasing the level of neem leaf meal (NLM) in the diets of the birds generally affected the performance of the birds in terms of average feed intake, average final body weight and average body weight gain, but showed positive results in terms of feed conversion ratio, egg number, hen day egg production (%) and cost benefits. There were also significant (P < 0.05) differences among the treatment means in terms of albumen weight, albumen width, yolk height, yolk index, yolk color and Haugh unit, but were similar (p > 0.05) in terms of albumen height, albumen index, yolk weight and yolk width. Yolk cholesterol values were significantly (p < 0.05) different among the treatment groups. External egg qualities in terms of egg length, egg shell thickness and shell weight were also significantly (P<0.05) different among the dietary groups, but egg weight, egg width and egg shape index were not significantly (p > 0.05) affected. Treatment effect on serum biochemical indices studied differed significantly (p < 0.05) among treatments. Neem leaf meal based diets had lower levels of serum cholesterol and glucose which differed significantly (p < 0.05) from the control. High density lipoprotein had lower levels at control than the neem leaf meal based diets, while values obtained for Low density lipoprotein and Triglycerides were superior (p < 0.05) for control than birds fed neem leaf meal based diets.
CONCLUSION
The present experiment showed that neem leaf meal at the level of 8% dietary inclusion performs best than other dietary inclusion. Also;
- Neemleaf meal could be used to improve the number of eggs
- Theuse of neem leaf meal based diets could produce better economic benefit in egg
- Neemleaf meal is non-toxic to laying birds up to 8% diet inclusion
- Neemleaf meal does not have a negative effect on the egg quality
- Neemleaf meal has the potential to reduce cholesterol level in blood and the eggs of the laying
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