Indian Journal of Poultry Science

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of dietary inclusion of sun dried and ground Azolla (Azolla pinnata) on production performance of broiler chicken. The study was conducted for a period of six weeks with 160, day-old commercial broiler chicks. The chicks were divided into four treatments with four replicates of ten chicks each. The treatment 1 (T1) was control with standard broiler ration and dried Azolla powder was supplemented in the basal diet at 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5 per cent levels to form treatment 2 (T2), treatment 3 (T3) and treatment 4 (T4), respectively.

The chemical composition of sun dried and ground Azolla meal contained 24.5% crude protein, 14.9% crude fibre, 3.7% ether extract, 17.0% total ash and 39.90% NFE on DM basis. Results of the present study revealed that supplementation of dried Azolla did not influence final body weight of broilers. The feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency up to sixth week of age did not reveal any significant difference among treatments. The per cent dressed yield, eviscerated yield and ready-to-cook yield in broilers were not influenced by dietary supplementation of dried Azolla. The per cent giblet yield of birds fed with 4.5% Azolla (T4) was significantly higher (P=0.05) than control and other treatments. It was concluded that dietary inclusion of dried Azolla up to 4.5% levels did not have any adverse effect on production performance of broiler chicken.