Effect Of Sprouting On Chemical Composition And Performances Of Improved Chickens Fed With Hydroponic Sorghum Fodder (HSF)

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

Raising chickens is rapidly gaining popularity in the developing world. However, high feed costs associated with intensive poultry rearing as well as increased competition between humans and animals/chicken on feed demand have necessitated the need for exploring new options in chicken feeding. Furthermore, chickens have a limited foraging range a factor that translates in a very narrow array of feeds they can access. Sorghum is one such feedstuff which is widely grown in Tanzania and has nutritional value almost similar to maize and also drought-resistant crop. Given this, two studies were conducted to determine the effect of sprouting sorghum grain on the chemical composition of sprouted sorghum and bird performance fed on the HSF based diet. In the first study, sorghum grain was sprouted in a hydroponic system for 168 hours and sampled for proximate analysis, minerals, anti-nutritional factors and amino acids. The sprouted sorghum seeds were subjected to proximate analysis in duplicate samples at 0, 24, 72, 120 and 168 hours. Whereas, in the second study the aim was to assess the effect of sprouted sorghum hydroponic fodder-based diets on growth performance, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, carcass yield and digestibility using Sasso chickens. In the second study one hundred and forty-four, growers were allocated randomly to four dietary treatments with three replications for each diet. Each replicate had 12 chickens. The treatment diets were designated as T1: Control; formulated ration with no fodder, T2: 25% HSF: 75% formulated ration, T3: 50% HSF: 50% formulated ration and T4: 75% HSF: 25% formulated ration. The HSF used in this experiment was that which was sampled for 168 hours. The formulated diets were based on locally available low-cost ingredients. Data collected were body weight, feed intake, digestibility and mortality rate. The digestibility trial was conducted at the end of the feeding trial.