PERFORMANCE OF BROILER STARTER CHICKEN FED DIETS CONTAINING SHEA BUTTER CAKE (Vitelleria paradoxa)

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to determine the performance of broiler starter chicken fed diets containing Shea butter cake (SBC) (Vitelleria paradoxa) was investigated. One hundred and fifty Ross 308 broiler chickens assigned to three (3) dietary treatments with first treatment been the control (0% SBC), second treatment containing 5% SBC and third treatment containing 10% SBC with 5 replicates per treatment and each replicate had 10 birds in a completely randomized design. The experiment lasted for four weeks. Data on feed intake and body weight gain were determine and compared. Feed intake for chicks under control diet (0%) 661.64 g/bird was significantly different (P<0.05) to those on diet 2 (5% SBC) 712.24 g/ bird and diet 3 (10% SBC) 870.63 g/bird . Similarly the highest body weight gain (BWG) of 335.77 and 331.64 /bird were obtained from diet 2 (5%) and diet 3 (10%) respectively which differ significantly (P<0.05) from the value obtained from diet 1 (10% SBC) 312.83. However the result of mortality showed that there was no significant difference between the treatment mean (P>0.05). Feed conversion ratio (FCR) increase with increase in SBC was similar amongst the diffewrent treatments It is concluded that feeding broilers with diet containing SBC enhanced performance.