GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF BROILER CHICKENS FED DIETS CONTAINING DIFFERENT SOURCES OF HERBAL METHIONINE

Abstract

The study was carried out to evaluate the performance of broiler chicks fed diets containing different herbal methionine (Phytonin™ and Methiorep®). A total of 300-four-weeks old Ross 308 broiler chickens were allotted randomly to five dietary treatments each replicated thrice, with 20 chicks, in a completely randomized design. The herbal methionine sources were included at 200g per 100kg diet (0.2%). Diet 1 was formulated with DL-Methionine (DLM) (0.20%) as control while diets 2, 3, 4, and 5 were formulated with Phytonin™, Methiorep®, Phytonin™ (0.12%) + DLM (0.08%) and Methiorep® (0.12%) + DLM (0.08%). Data were collected on growth parameters for 28 days (5-8 weeks). The growth performance result showed that final body weight (2652.66 and 2493.17g/b), weight gain (1554.89 and 1375.24 g/b), feed conversion ratio (2.05 and 2.19) and feed cost per kg weight gain (289.75 and 305.81) were significantly higher (p<0.05) in birds fed diets containing DLM and Phytonin™. Higher return per naira invested was recorded in birds fed diets supplemented with DLM (₦1.87) and phytonin™ (₦1.61) as against methiorep® (₦1.40). In conclusion, phytonin can be used inbroiler chicken’s diet, as the use of DLM and phytonin™ resulted into higher growth performance, higher economic benefits of ₦1.62 and ₦1.43 respectively, over feed cost.