Meat Quality of Broiler Chickens Fed Diets Containing some Tropical Leaves as Replacement of 50% Dietary Methionine

Abstract

Meat quality, carcass and organ characteristic of arbo acre breed of broiler chicken fed diets containing moringa, fluted pumpkin and African spinach meals and their composites as replacement for 50% synthetic methionine in diets were examined using a completely randomized experimental design involving two hundred and forty (240) chicks. Which were randomly distributed into eight dietary treatments of three replicates per treatment and ten birds per replicate. This study lasted for six weeks. At the end of the experiment, three (3) birds per replicate were randomly selected and slaughtered. The carcass and the organs characteristic were measured and thigh, breast and drumstick were separated for meat quality analysis. The carcass characteristic were all significantly (P≥0.05) differ with moringa having the highest. The organ characteristic shows that there were no significant (p≤0.05) difference in all the parameters except for the belly fat. The meat quality (P≤0.05) affected. There was improvement in thaw loss, tenderness, juiciness and overall acceptability of the meats with the inclusion of the leaf mills. The composite leaf meal inclusion gave the overall best result. It was concluded that the selected leaf meals and their composite could be used to replacement 50% synthetic methionine in poultry diet.