This experiment was conducted to investigate the haematological indices and growth performance of broilers fed diets containing Annona muricata leaf meal for eight weeks. A total of 60 unsexed day-old broiler birds were obtained from Agrited farms and were allotted to four treatments (T1, T2, T3 and T4) and replicated three times with five birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. The birds in T1, T2, T3 and T4 were fed with diets containing 0, 2, 4 and 6% Annona muricata leaf meal. The heamatological parameters determined were packed cell volume, red blood cell count, heamoglobin, white blood cell count, mean cell volume, mean cell heamoglobin estimation, mean cell haemoglobin concentration, and platelet count. Growth parameters measured were the initial weight, final weight gain, average daily feed intake, average daily weight gain, total feed intake and feed conversion ratio. The data collected was analyzed using one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The result of the experiment showed that there were no significant differences (P>0.05) in all the heamatological indices and they were within the normal range with the exception of the WBC. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in the growth performance with the exception of the initial weight. Thus, Annona muricata leaf meal is not recommended to be included in diets of broilers above 2% levels of inclusion as its inclusion does not have any economic benefit and decreased the growth performance due to its high fiber content and phytochemical properties.
Chidi et al. (Thu,) studied this question.