Growth Performance, Blood Profile and Economic Efficiency of Layer Chicks Fed Diets Containing Graded Levels of Moringa Leaf Meal at Pre-Laying Phase

The poultry industry is key to fighting poverty, improving food security and providing livelihood in many parts of the world (Attoh-Kotoku et al., 2010) but the growth and expansion of the poultry enterprise is being hampered by high cost of feed and occasional shortage of feed ingredients.This situation has arisen largely due to inadequate supply of feed ingredients of protein origin such as fishmeal (Dei et al., 2010).In poultry, feed is estimated to represent 65%-75% of the variable cost of production (MoFA, 2010).Therefore, changes in commodity prices for poultry feed have direct effect on the cost of production.Chicken compete with humans over food ingredients particularly those of protein origin like fishmeal so attention is currently focused on exploitation of lesser known or non-conventional feed resources (Attoh-Kotoku et al., 2010).Moringa oleifera is known to contain high concentrations of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals and all the essential amino acids (Makkar et al., 1997;Kakangi et al., 2007) making it more suitable for feeding monogastric animals like chicken, pigs and rabbits.It has the ability in boosting immune systems of birds and increases their resistance to diseases (Kakangi et al., 2007).In spite of the nutritive and medicinal value of Moringa oleifera, there is scanty information regarding its utilization in layer chicks.The study was carried out to determine the optimum level at which Moringa oleifera leaf meal could be incorporated in the diets of layer chicks to improve their growth performance, blood profile and economic efficiency at pre-laying phase.