Journal of Animal and Plant Research

Comparative Effects of Poultry Fat and Soybean Oil on Growth Performance in Broiler Chickens

2026-03-11T04:07:30+00:00

The research was done in order to compare the effects of poultry fat and soybean oil on the growth of broilers. Three dietary treatments including a control diet (CON) with no supplemental fat and a diet (SO) and diet (PF) supplemented with soybean oil or poultry fat were used randomly to allocate 360 one-day-old broiler chicks. The duration of the experiment was 42 days and it was subdivided into three phases; starter (1-14 days), grower (15-28 days) and finisher (29-42 days). Parameters of growth performance such as body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were measured. These findings indicated that, broilers that were fed diets with soybean oil and poultry fat had a much higher body weight gain and good feed ratio than that of the broilers that were fed the control diet (P < 0.05) at each of the growth phases. No significant effect of dietary treatments on the feed intake was found (P > 0.05). There were no observed significant differences between the soybean oil and poultry fat groups in most parameters of performance implying that the two sources of lipids are equally effective in supporting the growth of broilers. To conclude, dietary fat enhanced growth performance and feed efficiency in broilers chicken. Poultry fat exhibited similar effects with soybean oil and thus it can be concluded that it is a viable and economically viable alternative source of lipid in broiler diets.

Effect of Different Light Colors (Red, Blue, and Green) on the Growth and Physiological Performance of Seedlings

2026-07-13T06:22:49+00:00

Photosynthesis, morphogenesis and biochemical composition of plants is controlled by an environmental parameter (light) is the presence of a set of photoreceptors. The objective of the present study was to assess the effect of illumination with red (660 nm), blue (450 nm) and green (530 nm) emitting diode (LED) lights on the growth and physiological performance of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seedlings as compared to a white-light control under controlled greenhouse conditions. The seedlings were cultivated in the same photon flux density (PFD) (150 ± 5 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) and photoperiod (16 hours of light and 8 hours of dark) for 21 days for each light treatment. Growth parameters were measured such as plant height, leaf number, stem diameter, root length and biomass; physiological indices were measured: total chlorophyll content and carotenoid content. Red light resulted in the highest plant height and internode elongation along with the characteristic of auxin related growth, whereas, blue light gave shorter and more compact plants, with significantly higher number of leaves, stem diameter, chlorophyll content and biomass of roots. The lowest growth and chlorophyll content were observed under the green light for all treatments, which has the least absorption by chlorophyll pigments. Intermediate balanced growth was achieved with white light. The present results corroborate the differential effects of red and blue wavelengths on growth and photosynthetic pigment content of the plant, and the role of blue light in producing compact, stress-tolerant growth.

Growth Performance and Economic Efficiency of Broiler Chickens Fed Boiled Piliostigma reticulatum Seed Meal as a Replacement for Soybean Meal

2026-04-23T04:03:37+00:00

The study was conducted to evaluate the performance and economics benefit of broiler chickens fed dietary levels of Piliostigma reticulatum seed meal (PRSM) as replacement for soya bean meal. 300 day old broiler chicks (Ross 308 strain) were allocated to five treatment diets with four replicates in a completely randomize design. The treatments were designated as T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅ representing levels of substitution of 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 % respectively. The study lasted for 6 weeks were strict management practices were observed, in addition to feed and water given adli bitum throughout the study. At the end of the study data were collected on all the performance indices and results analyzed using ANOVA. Whereas economic benefit calculated after the termination of the study. The result of proximate analysis revealed that, PRS possesses considerable nutritional potentials. Similarly, significant (P< 0.05) differences were observed during the finisher phase for daily weight gain, total weight gain, and final body weight. The best performance was recorded at 20 % level (T₃), with final weight of 1882.40 g. However, cost benefit analysis showed that feed cost per kilogram gain was lowest for T₃ (₦1397.56), indicating the most cost-effective diet. Piliostigma reticulatum seed meal can effectively replace soya bean meal in broiler chickens diets up to 20 % level without adverse effects on productive performance, while achieving lower feed cost per kilogram gain, indicating that partial replacement is economically feasible and therefore, recommended.

Effect of Dietary Ginger Powder Levels on Growth and Production Performance of Broiler Chickens

2026-06-30T05:08:36+00:00

The authors have assessed the impact of various concentrations of ginger powder (Zingiber officinale) in diets on the growth and production efficiency of broiler chickens. Four dietary treatments were designed, T1 (control, 0% ginger), T2 (0.5% ginger), T3 (1.0% ginger), and T4 (1.5% ginger), were randomly allocated 120 day-old Cobb-500 chicks in total, three replicates of 10 each. The birds were kept at the state of 42 days under normal management conditions. Growth performance parameters like body weight, body weight gain, and average daily gain (ADG) were recorded on weekly basis and production performance parameters like feed intake, feed ratio (FCR) and mortality rate were also recorded. The findings revealed that diet supplementation of ginger powder increased growth and production performance and that, birds fed 1.0% ginger powder (T3) recorded the highest final body weight (2250.8 ± 30.2 g), total body weight gain (2208.6 ± 29.8 g), and optimal FCR (1.70 ± 0.02). Ginger supplemented groups had a minor increase in feed intake and lower mortality than the control. Birds fed more ginger (1.5%) or less (0.5%) were also found to have improvements yet they were not as effective as 1.0% inclusion. To sum up, Ginger 1.0% powder supplementation to the broiler diets improved both growth performance and feed ratio, reduced mortality, which indicates that ginger has the potential to be used as a natural substitute to antibiotic growth promoters in production of broilers.