PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS, HAEMATOLOGY AND SEROLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF BROILER CHICKENS FED DIETS SUPPLEMENTED WITH TALINUM TRIANGULARE

The utilization of unconventional feed resources in broiler production as a means of reducing costs associated with feed has been continually explored over the years. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of information on the use of wilted waterleaf (Talinum triangulare) in this regard. Thus, this trial which lasted for 6 weeks was conducted to evaluate the effect of supplementing a basal diet formulated to meet the requirement of the broiler chicken with varying levels of wilted waterleaf (WL) at 0 g/kg, 5 g/kg and 10 g/kg. One hundred and fifty (150) day-old Arbor Acre broiler chickens were randomly allotted to 3 dietary treatments (T1: 0 g/kg, T2: 5 g/kg, and T3: 10 g/kg) with 5 replicates per treatment and 10 birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Results obtained revealed that birds fed diet T3 had the highest final weight and weight gain. Feed conversion ratio was statistically similar for both diet T2 (1.69) and T3 (1.67) compared to diet T1 which had the highest feed conversion ratio (1.71). Haematological parameters showed that only mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular haemoglobin, lymphocyte and granulocytes were significantly (p < 0.05) influenced by dietary treatments while others were unaffected. There were no significant (p > 0.05) differences among all serum biochemical indices evaluated. The results obtained from this study suggested that supplementing broiler chicken diets up to 10 g/kg waterleaf can significantly improve performance and haematological parameters and could be adopted by broiler farmers for maximum productivity of farms.