Studies on the Effect of Guava Leaf Meal on Growth Performance and Body Composition of Golden Misri Chicks

Abstract

Guava (Pisidium guajava) is a common tropical fruit cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions. The present study was conducted to analyze the effect of guava leaf meal on growth performance and body composition of golden misri chicks (Gallus gallus). Ten days old, fifteen golden misri chicks were purchased from a local hatchery in Faisalabad and were divided into three treatments after weighting. The treatment T₁ was the control group and fed to only a diet without additives, T₂ and T₃ were experimental groups in which T₂ was served a basal diet with 9g of guava and T₃ was fed to a basal diet with 18g of guava as an additive. The dietary phase was categorized into two phases; the grower phase and the finisher phase. In the grower phase, chicks were fed a commercial diet and in the finisher phase, the chicks were served with a manually prepared diet. The time duration of the whole research trial was 40 days. The growth performance such as average weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio and specific growth rate were determined on a weekly basis. The body composition in which crude protein was determined by the micro Kjeldahl method, crude fat was determined by the Soxhlet method, moisture was measured by using a drying oven and ash was determined with the furnace at 600ºC by using Soxhlet apparatus. The results revealed that average weight gain increased significantly (P˂0.05) in T₃ 61.5±4.09 and decreased in T₁ 59.32±19.0. The FCR rate was maximum in T₃1.62±0.40 and was minimum in T₁1.91±0.45.The feed intake ratio was maximum in treatment T₃109±30.83 and was minimum inT₁ 103±8.82. The specific growth rate was maximum in T₃ 0.58±0.009 and was minimum in T₁ 0.57±0.055). The crude protein was higher in T₃ 22.5±0.925 was minimum in T₁ 20.14±0.625). Crude fat was lower in T₃ 5.61±1.73and was higher in T₁ 7.44±0.06).  Moisture content was maximum in T₁ 70.5±0.06 and was minimum in T₃ 62±1). Ash content was higher in T₃1.39±0.01 and was lower in T₁ 1.16±0.01). The whole data was analyzed by using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)