Carcass and blood components of broiler chickens fed sorghum or millet as replacement for maize in the semi arid zone of Nigeria

Abstract

The effects of feeding broiler chickens with millet, low tannin and high tannin sorghum baseddiets compared to maize- based diet on the carcass measurements and blood constituents was investigated in the semi-arid zone of Nigeria. Two-week (14 days) old broiler chicks (Anak 2000) weighing averagely 351.7±5.67 were randomly allotted to four experimental diets in which maize (T1) control, millet (T2), low-tannin sorghum (T3) and high tannin sorghum (T4) served as the energy sources in a randomized complete block design (RCBD). Each treatment contained 45 birds with three replicates of 15 birds each. Except for breast, full crop and abdominal fats, there were no significant (P>0.05) differences among all the treatment groups for carcass and organ measurements. Packed cell volume (PCV), red blood cells (PBC) count and lymphocyte values were significantly (P<0.05) higher in the maize (T1), millet (T2) and low tannin sorghum-based (T3) diets than the high-tannin sorghum based diet (T4). Mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC), basophils and neutrophils values were however, inferior (p<0.05) in the maize (T1), millet (T2) and low-tannin sorghum based (T3) diets compared to the high-tannin sorghum based (T4) diets. Blood protein and blood sodium were better (P<0.05) in the sorghum-based diets (T3 and T4) than those of maize and millet-based diets. This study therefore revealed that replacing maize with sorghum or millet has no adverse effects on carcass and blood constituents of broiler chickens.