The utilization of African black pepper (Piper guineense) as feed additive on the growth performance of broiler chickens

Abstract

A seven-week feeding trial was carried out using one-day-old Cobb 500 broiler chicks. The broilers were fed diets supplemented with varying levels of African black pepper (Piper guineense) to determine their growth performance. The completely randomized design (CRD) was used for the experiment and birds were randomly assigned to four treatments each replicated thrice. Each replicate consisted of ten birds making a total of thirty birds per treatment. Treatment 1 was the control (0%) without the supplementation of Piper guineense, while birds on treatments 2, 3 and 4 were fed diets supplemented with 0.40, 0.80 and 1.20% of Piper guineense meal respectively. Diets formulated for broilers were iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous in a single-phase feeding regime. Throughout the experimental period, feed and water were supplied ad libitum. The findings of this research revealed that dietary treatments did not have a significant effect (P>0.05) on the final live weight, daily weight gain, daily feed intake and percentage mortality of the experimental birds. Notably, however, the feed efficiency was significantly affected (P<0.05) by dietary treatments with the supplementation of 0.80% Piper guineense recorded the best feed efficiency of 68.10% while treatment 1 (the control) had the lowest feed efficiency of 55.34%. It is, therefore, evident from the results obtained in this study that Piper guineense possesses the potential to boost feed efficiency in broiler production.