EVALUATION OF GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF BROILERS FED DIET CONTAINING GRADED LEVELS OF PROCESSED AFRICAN STAR APPLE

Abstract

The study investigated the combination of physical and chemical methods for eliminating the secondary metabolites in the African star apple kernels (ASAK) for feeding poultry. The kernels obtained from the seed were soaked for 12 hours, boiled for 30 minutes and sun dried. They weremilled, pretreated with the absorbents using activated charcoal at 5g/kg, bentonite at 20g/kg, polyethelene glycol at 20g/kg and placed in tightly sealed containers for seven days before inclusion in the diet at graded levels of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% respectively replacing maize in the feed. The diets were fed to 315 one week old cobb broiler chicks in a 3 x7 factorial arrangement of Completely Randomized Design having three replicates with five birds per replicate in a trial that lasted for 7 weeks. Soaking the kernels for 12 hours and boiling for 30 minutes was considerably effective by decreasing the saponins, phytate, oxalate and glycoside contents by 74.15, 88.06, 97.50 and 99.99% but increased the tannin level by 18.69%. The further processing of the kernels by absorbents exhibited similar action, leading to a general decline in the concentration of the saponins, phytate, tannins but elicited the levels of oxalate and glycoside by 94.21 and 99.61% respectively. The growth performance of the birds were significantly (p<0.05) affected despite the reduced concentration of the antinutritional factors after processing limiting the use for poultry.