Paper Title
Response Of Broiler Chicks To Dietary Moringa Seeds And Zigbir As Natural Growth Promoters

Abstract
In a 42-day experiment the effect of moringa seeds and Zigbir on growth performance and carcass characteristics was studied. One hundred twenty, 1day-old, unsexed Ross 308 broilers were purchased from commercial hatchery. The initial live body weight of the chick was (47.00 g �0.67). The chicks were randomly assigned to 4 dietary treatments containing 3 replicates of 10 birds each. Starter and finisher experimental diets consisted of control, 0.04% zigbir, 0.5% undecorticated moringa seeds UDCM and 0.5% decorticated moringa seeds DCM. Data were analyzed in completely randomized design using the general linear model (GLM) procedure. Feed intake, body weight gain, FCR and PER were not significantly (P≥0.05) influenced by dietary treatments except feed intake during starter phase. Dietary moringa seeds both decorticated or undecorticated significantly (P≤0.05) reduced feed intake during starter phase compared to control and zigbir supplemented groups. However, DCM seeds improved overall body weight gain by 5.58, 5.78 and 10.43%, when compared to control, Zigbir and UDCM seeds group, respectively. During all growth phases, the performance of birds fed dietary zigbir was not significantly (P≥0.05) different versus control. On the other hand relative weight of breast was significantly (P≤0.05) higher for birds fed DCM seeds compared to the others. It was concluded that supplementation of DCM seeds improved growth performance of the broilers. Keywords- Decorticated moringa, Zigbir, Broiler performance, Carcass.