ABSTRACT

A study was conducted with 180 Lohman Brown and 120 local pullets to evaluate the effect of genotype and inclusion level on the performance of pullets fed boiled pigeon pea seed meal(PSM) based diet. The experimental design was 2 x 5 factorial in a completely Randomized design (CRD). Five experimental diets were formulated such that diet I (control) was maize - soybean meal based with 0% PSM. Diets 2,3, 4 and 5 had 15, 20, 25 and 30% PSM, respectively replacing part of maize and soybean in the diets. Measurements were daily feed intake, final live weight. The result showed that at the pullet chick stage (1-8weeks) the exotic pullets were superior to the local pullets in terms of weight gain, feed intake and protein intake (P<0.05). At the pullets grower stage (9-20week of age), the local genotype was ' significantly (P<0.05) lower than its exotic counterpart in feed conversion (FCR) but higher (P<0.05) in protein efficiency ratio (PER). Birds .fed the PSM diets were similar (P>0.05) to those fed the control diet in growth rate, feed intake and FCR at chick phase, but were significantly (P<0.05) superior in terms of weight gain, FCR and PER from 9 weeks to point of lay (POL). Inclusion level of PSM in diets did not significantly (P>0.05) influence feed and protein intake from day old to point of ' lay. Generally, genotype x inclusion level interaction effect was significant in daily' feed intake, final live weight, daily weight gain. It was concluded that boiled PSM could be incorporated in. the diets of both local and exotic pullets as high as 30% of the whole diet without any adverse effect on growth performance.