Effect of Cooked Mucuna sloanei Seed Meal on the Performance and Hematological Indices of Starter Broilers

Abstract

Hamburger (Mucuna sloanei) is a tropical legume crop grown for its seeds used as soup thickener by humans. Few data are available on its use in poultry diets. We examined the effect of cooked Mucuna sloanei seed meal on the performance, hematology and biochemical indices of broilers in a 28 day feeding trial. Cooked Mucuna sloanei seed meal was analyzed for its chemical composition and incorporated into starter broiler diets at 0.0, 5.0, 10.0 and 15.0 %( T₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄) inclusion levels, respectively. A total of 120 day-old broiler chicks divided into four groups of 30 birds each. Each group was further divided into 3 replicates of 10 birds and fed the diets in a complete randomized design. Cooked Mucuna sloanei contains 26.10. 3.20, 8.30 and 3.83% crude protein, crude fibre, ether extract and ash, respectively. The seed meal is high in tannins, saponin, alkaloid, flavonoids and cardiac glycoside but low in oxalate, phytate and phenols. Body weight gain and feed intake decreased significantly (p<0.05) with increasing dietary level of cooked Mucuna sloanei seed meal. Birds fed the control diet had significant (p<0.05) better feed conversion ratio than the Mucuna sloanei diet groups. The hematological analysis showed a significant (p< 0.05) reduction in the Hemoglobin concentration, packed cell volume, mean cell volume, mean cell hemoglobin and heterophil while the value for lymphocytes increased with inclusion of the test ingredient. There was no significant difference (p> 0.05) in all thebiochemical parameters analyzed except the globulin which was similar for the control, T₂ and T₃ but significantly low for the T₄ group. It was concluded that, though no mortality was recorded, cooked Mucuna sloanei meal could not improve the performance of starter broilers at the different dietary inclusionlevels.