Blood profile of starter broiler chickens fed diet containing leaf meal composite as alternative to commercial broiler premix

Abstract

The need to explore and harness the potentials of green vegetable plants as part replacement for the more
expensive conventional vitamin-mineral premix is of great importance. One hundred and eighty starter
broiler chickens were used in a four-week experiment to determine the effect of varying levels of Leaf Meal
Composite (LMC) as an alternative to vitamin-mineral premix using Telfairia occidentalis, Vernonia
amygdalina, Piper quinenses and Ipomea batata on the growth, haematology, and serum biochemical
profile of starter broiler chickens. The chicks were allocated to six dietary treatments each having thirty
birds, replicated thrice with ten birds each in a Completely Randomized Design. The composite leaf meal
was blended at the ratio 1:1:1:1 and inclusion level was 0.00 (0.25% premix), 0.125 (0.125% premix), 0.063
(0.0% premix), 0.125 (0.0% premix), 0.188 (0.0% premix) and 0.25% (0.0% premix) at the expense of a
commercial premix and designated diets 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 respectively.Treatment one (T1) served as the
control. The birds were weighed on a weekly basis. At the 4
th week of the experiment, blood samples were
collected from one bird randomly selected from each replicate per treatment for the evaluation of
haematological and serum parameters. Data was obtained for analysis. The growth performance result
reveals that the Average Daily Feed Intake (ADFI), Average Daily Weight Gain (ADWG), Total Feed Intake
(TFI) and Final Body Weight (FBW) were all significantly (P<0.05) affected by the dietary treatments. Feed
Conversion Ratio (FCR) was not significantly (P>0.05) different among all treatment groups including the
control, although, the control was numerically lower than T2, T3 and T6 while T4 and T5 were lower than
the control. The blood profile result reveals that the LMC was not toxic to the birds, had superior disease
fighting ability and were not anaemic. All the treatment levels were significant for mean corpuscular volume
(MCV), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) and mean cell haemoglobin concentration, (MCHC).
aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT) reduced with increasing concentration
of LMC, the test material was not toxic to the liver. Total Globulin and Glucose level reduced with
increasing concentration of LMC. Leaf meal is effective in reducing fat deposition. It can be concluded
conceivably within the limit of this study that this leaf meal composite had no detrimental effect on the
growth, haematology and serum biochemical profile of starter broiler chicken and can be used to replace
commercial Vitamin-Mineral premix. Hence, LMC could help to stem over dependence of broiler farmers on
importation of commercial Vitamin-Mineral premix