Use of Azolla Plant in Broiler Diets and its Effect on Productive Performance

Abstract

This study was conducted in the poultry farm, the Department of the Animal Production / University of Mosul. The aim was to partially replace Azolla in the diet of broiler chickens as a nutritional management method to include it as an available local feed ingredient and to study its effect on productive traits, economic implications and carcass traits. The duration of experiment lasted 42 days, and the experiment included four treatments by adding different percentages of dried Azolla with three replicates for each treatment: T1 (control): a diet free of Azolla T2: a diet containing dried Azolla at a rate of 4.5%. T3: a diet containing dried Azolla at a rate of 9%. T4: a diet containing 13.5% of dried Azolla. The results of the statistical analysis were: There were no significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between the treatments of Azolla added to the diet compared with the control in the average live body weight, weight gain, relative growth rate, feed consumption and feed conversion coefficient, and increase in the value of economic indicators, coefficient, production index and productivity yield kg/ m2 With a significant decrease in the percentage of total mortality for a period of five and six weeks.