Availability, biomass production, growth performance and chemical composition of Azolla filiculoides: A potential feed for Chicken in Ethiopia

This research was conducted to assess the utilization, availability and chemical composition of A. filiculoides in the water logged areas of South Gondar Zone and evaluate its chemical composition and growth performance under different fertilizer application.304 farmers from three rural kebeles were interviewed to assess the availability and utilization.To evaluate the growth performance and chemical composition, twelve earthen ponds of four treatments with three replications were used.Based on the survey, Azolla was found to be the most dominant and one of chicken feed aquatic plant.Based on the experiment, the biomass, Relative Growth Rate (RGR) and Doubling Time (DT) showed highly significant difference (P<0.001)among the treatment groups and T2 and T4 exhibited significantly better performance than other treatments.The proximate analysis revealed that the Crude Protein (CP), Crude Fiber (CF), ash and Metabolizable Energy (ME) showed significant difference among treatments.The CP content of T3 (32.26%) and T4 (32.07%) were significantly higher (P<0.01)than the control and T2.The secondary chemical analysis revealed that alkaloids were present in higher percentage than the recommended proportion.Some proportion of A. filiculoides can be considered to be used as feed source due to chickens' preference to feed in the villages, its high biomass yield, growth performance and CP content.