Performance and Blood Profiles of Finisher Broilers Fed Diets Containing Graded Levels of Cashew (Anarcadium occidentale L.) Pulp Meal Performance and Blood Profiles of Finisher Broilers Fed Diets Containing Graded Levels of Cashew (Anarcadium occidentale L.) Pulp Meal

Abstract

A 4-week feeding trial was conducted to investigate the performance and blood profiles of finisher broilers fed cashew pulp meal (CPM) based diets. 135 finisher broilers, “Arbor acre†strain was randomly allocated to five dietary treatments consisting of three replicates of 9 finisher broilers each. Five on-farm diets containing 0 (control), 10, 20, 30, and 40% CPM replacing maize coded as T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5, respectively, were formulated. All performance parameters measured were significantly different (P < 0.05). Final weight, daily weight gain (DWG), daily feed intake, feed conversion ratio, mortality, feed cost/kg gain (feed cost/kg gain), and cost of 1 kg feed ranged from 1042.54 to 1305.55g, 16.31 to 28.51g, 91.86 to 110.54g, 3.26 to 5.56, 0 to 22.22%, 115.43 to 135.46, and 414.23 to 611.43, respectively. Hematological profile show that packed cell volume varied from 28.67 to 31.00%, hemoglobin (Hb) 9.07 to 10.60g/dl, red blood cell 1.80 to 2.31 × 106/μl, white blood cell 213.13 to 223.67 × 103/μl, mean corpuscular volume 132.27 to 134.87 fl, means corpuscular Hb (MCH) concentration 29.80 to 31.63 g/dl, and MCH 40.10 to 41.87 pg, respectively, and were significantly (P < 0.05) different. Treatments showed significant difference (P < 0.05) all serum parameters, the obtained values were total protein 4.25–4.92 g/dl, albumin 1.73–2.37 g/dl, aspartate aminotransferase 102.33–135.67 μ/l, alanine aminotransferase 4.00–7.33 μ/l, and total cholesterol 2.37–3.73 Mmol/l. The study showed that CPM depressed live weight but did not affect birds’ health even at 40% replacement of maize.