Effects of dietary intake of Moringa oleifera leaf meal on the growth performance of pullet chicks

This study determined the effects of dietary intake of Moringa Oleifera (M. oleifera) leaf meal on growth performance of pullets. Two hundred and forty Isa Brown day-old chicks were randomly allotted to 4 different treatment groups and each treatment had 3 replicates of 20 chicks each. At 4^th week of age, birds in group 1 (T1)were fed with 16% crude protein (CP) grower diet (control feed; 0.0% M. oleifera) whereas birds in groups 2 (T2), 3 (T3) and 4 (T4) received the control feed supplemented with 2.5%; 5.0% and 7.5% M. oleifera leaf meal, respectively. Results indicate that although intake of M. oleifera leaf meal did not affect final body weight and weight gain of the pullets (P>0.05), feed intake of the pullets declined significantly (P<0.05) as the amount of dietary M. oleifera intake was increased from 2.5% to 7.5%. Feed conversion ratio of T4 group was better (P<0.05) than those of control birds.