ROASTING OF BLACK SEED (NIGELLA SATIVA) AND AFRICAN NUTMEG (MONODORA MYRISTICA) NEGATIVELY AFFECT PERFORMANCE OF ARBOR ACRES BROILER STARTERS

Abstract

Elimination of synthetic antibiotics in animal nutrition has been a global interest. Medicinal plants are relatively cheap and could be considered as alternatives. Nigella sativa (black seed) and Monodora myristica (African nutmeg) are examples and roasting was used to minimize the inherent antinutrients in these plants. Therefore, this study investigated effects of two herbal feed additives in roasted form (black seed and African nutmeg) as growth promoters for broiler starters. A total of 160 one-day old Arbor Acre strain of broiler chicks were randomly assigned to 5 treatments consisting of four replicates with eight birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. The treatments were T1 - control (given antibiotics), T2 - 0.5% black seed (BS), T3 - 0.5% African nutmeg (AN), T4 - 0.25% BS + 0.25% AN and T5 - 0.5% BS + 0.5% AN. Birds in T2 to T5 were not given antibiotics. Feed and water were given ad libitum. Data were collected on growth performance, haematological and serum biochemical parameters which were subjected to ANOVA using SPSS version-21. The roasting of black seed and African nutmeg had detrimental effect (P < 0.05) effect on growth performance. However, broiler starters in control had the highest final weight (1027.81g), daily weight gain (35.68g) with the best feed-to-gain ratio (1.32). Starters in T2 had the highest RBC (2.43×106/µL) and WBC (145.00×103/µL). Haematological and serum biochemical parameters were within the normal ranges. It was concluded that roasting black seed and African nutmeg had depressing effect on performance of Arbor Acres broilers.