Processing of simaruba (Simarouba glauca) oil cake for detoxification and its evaluation in broiler chicken

Ten physical, chemical and physico chemical methods were tried to detoxify the Simaruba oilcake (SOC) which is a very rich source of protein and contains a bitter toxic constituent known as quassinoids making it unsuitable for livestock and poultry feeding. The crude protein and crude fibre contents of the processed samples were 49.5 and 18.45, 47 and 18.85, 48.02 and 16.49, 61.98 and 7.59, 62.34 and 7.34, 42 and 18.51, 46 and 19.23, 40.20 and 12.12, 59 and 12.45 and 62.8 and 7.83 percent, respectively, for the soaking, fermentation, boiling, roasting, autoclaving, HCl treatment, acetic acid treatment, NaOH treatment, methanol extraction and roasting following ammonia treatment. Treatment with acids, alkali as well as water resulted in loss of dry matter, reduction in protein content and increases in crude fibre content of the SOC. The processed oilcakes were evaluated through a biological trial by incorporating it at 10% level in broiler diet. The growth, feed efficiency and mortality were compared with the control. The average sixth week body weight of the T₁ (control), T₂ (SOC), T₃ (soaked SOC), T₄ (fermented SOC), T₅ (boiled SOC), T₆ (roasted SOC), T₇ (autoclaved SOC), T₈ (HCl treated SOC), T₉ (acetic acid treated SOC), T₁₀ (NaOH treated SOC), T₁₁ (alcohol extracted SOC), and T₁₂ (NH₃ treated and roasted SOC) groups were 1944, 198, 496, 604, 399, 1203, 367, 681, 916, 412, 775 and 1681 g, respectively. The FCR and mortality of the T₁₂ group was comparable with the control though the 6^th week body weight of all the treatments differed significantly from the control. It was concluded that ammonia treatment followed by roasting of the oilcake was found to be a suitable method of detoxification of the oilcake without much adverse effect on its nutrient composition