Carica

Broiler

Biology

Endocrinology

Animal science

Body weight

Feed conversion ratio

Weight gain

Meal

Completely randomized design

Botany

Food science

Feeding trial was conducted on sixty day-old Anak b roiler chicks of average weight of 204.11+3.29g for eight weeks to evaluate the effect of sun -dried paw-paw leaf meal (PLM) on their growth performance as well as proximate composition analysis on the PLM. The birds were ass igned to four treatment diets comprising T 1 (0% PLM), T 2 (5% PLM), T 3 (10% PLM) and T 4 (15% PLM) in a completely randomized design. They were replicated thrice with 5 chicks per replicate. All data collected were subjected to ana lysis of variance and difference in means separated using Duncan's New Multiple Range TThe results showed that PLM contains crude protein (25.30%), crude fibre (8 .86%), ether extract (0.81%), ash (8.88%), nitrogen-free extract (43.82%) and moi sture (12.33%). The average daily weight gains and feed conversion ratios (FCR) were not significantly different (P>0.05) among all the treatments although demonstr ated progressive numerical increase in weight gains as the PLM increased in th e diets. Similar trend was also observed in the FCR where T 4(4.01) was better than T 3 (4.11) and T 2 (4.12) but not T 1 (3.92). The average daily feed intake showed a sign ificant difference (P 0.05) w hen T 2 and T 3 were compared in this respect. Therefore, inclusion of PLM up to 15% in broilers' diet is recommended for improvement in weight gain.

The Nutritive Profile of Sun-Dried Paw-Paw (Carica Papaya ) Leaf Meal and its Effect on the Growth Performance of Broiler Chickens