EFFECTS OF FERMENTED PAWPAW SEEDS ON PERFORMANCE, ORGAN AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER CHICKEN

Pawpaw (Carica papaya) seed is often seen as the waste product of pawpaw fruit noted for being discarded after every peel of pawpaw fruit. However, studies have shown that it has enormous nutritional and medicinal properties, which formed the basis for this investigative studies. The study was designed to investigate the effect of fermented dried pawpaw seed fed at varying level of inclusion in the diets of broiler chicken at finisher stage on their general performance, carcass and organs characteristics. Two hundred day old chicks were used for the experiment and were exposed to the same management procedure throughout the starter phase (0 − 4 weeks). One hundred and fifty birds were then selected randomly and divided into 5 treatments of 30 birds per treatment and replicated three times with 10 birds per replicate. The pulverized fermented dried pawpaw seed was added into the broiler finisher diet in the proportion of 0 %, 5 %, 10 %, 15 %, 20 % and were allotted to treatments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Initial weight, feed intake, daily feed intake, and the feed conversion ratio was measured and calculated. Significant differences across all the treatments for the carcass weight was noticed (P < 0.05). However, the result also showed that there was no significant difference in the organs across all treatments except for the kidney and the proventriculus. However, de-feathered weight at 15 % level of inclusion was the highest, meaning the birds could still tolerate the test ingredient up to that level, however, the birds were at best on 10 % inclusion level as they recorded the highest weight gain next to the control. A case of depressed appetite was noticed in treatment 5 (20 %), which brought about the poor weight gained recorded, compared to other treatments. The result of this study showed that the use of the fermented dried pawpaw seed flour can be tolerated up to about 10 % inclusion as it gave the lowest FCR (feed conversion ratio) which could bring about high profitability, hence, encourage more people to go into Poultry business.