Growth performance, carcass characteristics and economics of broiler chicken fed graded levels of raw Mucuna sloanei seed meal

Growth performance, carcass characteristics and economics of broiler chicken fed graded levels of raw Mucuna sloanei seed meal were investigated. A total of 150, 1- day old broiler chickens were used. There were five treatments each replicated into three with 10 birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. Five treatment diets were formulated. Diet 1 served as control, while diets 2, 3, 4, and 5 had 5, 10, 15, and 20 %, respectively of raw mucuna seed meals (RMSM) added to them. The experiment lasted 49 days. The parameters considered were growth performance, carcass characteristics and economics of production. For growth performance, the result revealed that RMSM significantly (P<0.05) depressed growth as the levels of inclusion of RMSM increased from 0 to 20%. There were significant differences (p<0.05) in all the parameters considered under growth except for initial body weight and mortality. There was progressive loss in final body weight as the level of mucuna inclusion increased from 0% to 20%. Control recorded the highest live body weight of 3023.30g while, birds fed diet with 20% mucuna had the least body weight of 504.43g. Among the birds placed on the test diets, birds fed diet with 5% mucuna seed meal performed significantly (P<0.05) better (1840.00g) than other test diets. Birds fed diets with 10 and 15% mucuna had final body weight of 1180.00 and 726.67g, respectively. The progressive loss in weight was obvious early in the experiment and at 8 weeks of age the broiler fed 20% raw mucuna. Mucuna sloanei based diet weighed only 504.43g (16.68% of the control) as against 1840.00, (60.86% of the control) for that fed 5%.mucuna. Percentage dressed weight and percentage breast and thigh were significantly (P<0.05) higher for chicken fed control diet. 10% level of raw MSSM gave highest value for drumstick (14.91%) while control gave the least (13.00%). 5% raw MSSM (27. 71%) compared favourably with control (30.60%) for breast cut. Gross margin significantly decreased from N1459.80 for control diet to N 14.20 for D5 as the percentage inclusion of MSSM increases from 0 to 20%. In conclusion, birds fed raw Mucuna sloanei seed meal diet could not compare favourably with those fed soya bean based diets even at 5% level of inclusion. Processing is therefore recommended to enhance performance