Preliminary Study on Prosopis juliflora Pods as Unconventional Feed Ingredient in Diets of Broiler Chicks AL-Beitawi N.A.*, Awawdeh F.T.1, Khwaileh M.M. Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 3030, Irbid, 22110, Jordan. *Reprint request: Dr. N.A. AL-Beitawi, E-mail: beitawi@just.edu.jo
1National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension, P.O. Box 639 - Baqaa, 19381-Jordan. Abstract Evaluation of Prosopis juliflora pods (PJP) as unconventional feed ingredient in broilers diets was studied. An experiment with one d-old broiler chicks (n=540) was conducted from 1 to 42-d of age. There were 4 dietary treatments each with 3 replicates and contained graded levels of PJP at 0 (Control), 10 (PJP-10), 15 (PJP-15) and 20 (PJP-20) percent instead of yellow corn. Chickens fed PJP-20 diet had the highest (P<0.05) live body weight, body weight gain and better (P<0.05) feed conversion. No significant differences were noticed in dressing, breast meat and leg meat percentage among treatments. Cooking loss percent was the highest (P<0.05) for control group. Breast meat of chickens fed control diet and PJP-10 had the highest (P<0.05) pH values. While, PJP-10 and PJP-15 gave the highest (P<0.05) shear force values. Chickens fed PJP-15 and PJP-20 had the highest (P<0.05) breast meat crude protein and moisture percent. Ether extract percent and ash content were higher (P<0.05) for chickens fed control diet. With respect to gastrointestinal tract segments, chickens fed PJP-20 diet had the highest (P<0.05) segment weight. It can be concluded that PJP can replace corn by 20 percent level in the diet of broiler chickes. Top Key words Carcass, Chickens, Gastrointestinal tract, Performance, Prosopis juliflora. Top |