Effect of dietary supplementation of neem leaf meal and citric acid on growth performance and cost economics of broiler chickens

Effect of dietary supplementation of neem leaf meal and citric acid on growth performance and cost economics of broiler chickens An experiment was conducted to study the effect of dietary supplementation of neem leaf meal (NLM) and citric acid (CA) on growth performance and cost economics of broilers. A total of 288 day-old chicks were randomly allocated into 6 dietary groups. The birds were fed on standard diets as per (BIS, 2007) without any supplementation control (T₀); and with supplementation of NLM 2.5 g/kg (T₁); CA 15 g/kg (T₂); CA 25 g/kg (T₃); NLM 2.5 g + CA 15 g/kg (T₄); NLM 2.5 g + CA 25 g/kg of feed (T₅). The results showed that final body weight (BW) was significantly (P<0.05) higher in group T₂, whereas BW at 4^th week reduced significantly (P<0.05) in group T₅ when compared to T₀. Feed intake reduced significantly (P<0.05) in groups T₃ and T₅ than T₀during the finisher phase. Although better (P<0.05) FCR was observed in treatment groups during the 6^th week however, the overall mean did not differ significantly among the groups. The profit per bird as well as per kg live weight was higher in group T₁ followed by T₂ as compared to T₀. Hence, it is concluded that NLM and CA can be safely incorporated in broiler diets separately at the inclusion level of 2.5 g and 15 g per kg of feed.