Sciences de la volaille, de la pêche et de la faune
Libre accès
ISSN: 2375-446X
ISSN: 2375-446X
Zenebe Abrham, Asnakew Awuk, Natnael Teshager and Zewdu Wondifraw
This experiment was carried out to evaluate the nutritive value of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) meal with the substituting of soybean grain on the performance of SASSO x RIR crossbred chicks. A total of one hundred fifty six 21 day-old male SASSO x RIR crossbred chicks were grouped into 12 pens of 13 chicks each, and randomly assigned to four dietary treatments with the first treatment T1 comprised a ration with no safflower meal (100% SBM), while T2, T3, and T4 were made to contain 20%, 40% and 60% safflower meal with substituting for soybean meal out of 36.35% of total mixed ration (TMR), respectively. All diets were isocaloric (3695.74 kcalME/kg DM) and isonitrogenous (21.42% CP). Feed intake, feed utilization efficiency and growth performance were determined from 2 to 12 weeks. The results showed that the mean dry matter intake and feed conversion efficiency were varying significantly (P<0.05) among the dietary treatments. Moreover, significantly (P<0.01) inferior final body weight gain was obtained in chicks fed 100% safflower meal than the rest of dietary treatments. Weight gain was highest (18.17 g/day) for the ration containing 21.8% safflower meal (60% substitute T4) and lowest (13.9 g/day) for the diet containing 36.35% soybean meal (control T1). The higher net return was detected in T4 (81.87 ETB) as compared to other treatments and the least return T1 (64.08 ETB). Based on this, it could be concluded that soybean grain could be substituted by safflower meal in chick’s rations at the level of 60% without any adverse effect on the performance of chicks so as to increase the economic efficiency.