Livestock Research for Rural Development 17 (12) 2005 Guidelines to authors LRRD News

Citation of this paper

Effect of velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) seeds cooked in maize-cob ash solution on the performance of broiler starter chickens

O O Emenalom, V C Orji and N C Ogbonna

Department of Animal Science and Technology, Federal University of Technology, Owerri,
P.M.B. 1526, Owerri, Imo State-Nigeria
emenalom2000@yahoo.com       oemenalo@futo.edu.ng


Abstract

A 28-day feeding trial was conducted to determine the effect of whole and cracked velvet bean seeds cooked in maize-cob ash solution on the performance of broiler chicks. Whole and cracked velvet bean seeds were separately soaked in water for 48 hours, cooked for one hour in maize-cob ash solution, sun-dried and then ground into meals. The meals were then incorporated into broiler starter diets at 25 and 30% dietary levels respectively and fed from 0 to 28 days of age. The control diet contained no velvet bean meal.

At 25 and 30% dietary levels, cracked velvet bean meal supported broiler performance comparable to the control. Birds fed 30% whole velvet bean (WVB) meal had a significantly depressed growth; grew 84.22% of control but feed intake and feed to gain ratio were unaffected.

Cooking in maize-cob ash solution improved the nutritive value of velvet bean seeds, allowing for 25 and 30% dietary inclusion levels for whole and cracked seeds respectively.

Keywords: Broilers, maize-cob-ash, performance, velvet bean


Introduction

Velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) contains several anti-nutritional factors (Siddhuraju et al 1996) which though reduced by heat treatment (Udedibie and Carlini 1998) are not completely inactivated. These anti-nutritional factors which include: trypsin inhibitors, lectins, phytates, phenols, cyanogenic glycosides, α-amylase inhibitors, tannins and L-3-4 dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-Dopa), among others, affect its acceptability and utilization by humans and animals.

To overcome these anti-nutritional factors, various heat processing methods have been used for its detoxification ( Siddhuraju et al 1996;Udedibie and Carlini 1998; Berhe 2001). Velvet bean seeds are high in L-Dopa and except for L-Dopa, all the anti-nutritional factors detected in the seeds are heat labile (Mary Josephine and Janardhanan 1992). It has however been observed that cooking in alkaline or acid solution was effective in reducing the L-Dopa content of Mucuna pruriens (Wanjekeche 2001).

Earlier studies (Harms et al 1961;Olaboro et al 1991; Emenalom and Udedibie 1998; Carmen et al 1999; Esonu 2001) have shown that raw Mucuna pruriens is toxic to broilers. Processing the bean by heat treatments (Emenalom and Udedibie 1998; Carmen et al 1999; Esonu 2001; Udedibie et al 2001; Emenalom 2004; Emenalom et al 2005), only gave indication of partial detoxification hence its dietary inclusion level could not exceed 25%. However,Mucuna pruriens seeds cooked in alkaline or acid solution has not been tried on the performance of broilers. The trial herein reported was therefore designed to examine the performance of broiler chicks fed diets containing whole or cracked Mucuna pruriens seeds cooked in maize-cob ash solution.


Materials and Methods

Mucuna pruriens seeds used for this study were harvested from the teaching and Research farm of the Federal University of Technology Owerri, located in the rainforest zone of Nigeria (5o 29'N and 7o 02'E) and at an elevation of 90.m. The environment has an annual rainfall of 2641 mm, temperature from 27 to 30.5oC and relative humidity of 86.6%.

The Mucuna pruriens seeds were divided into two batches. One batch was soaked in water for 48 hours while the second batch was cracked into pieces of 2-4 parts per seed using a hammer mill adjusted plate electric grinding machine. The cracked seeds were then soaked in water for 48 hours. Both samples were rinsed with fresh water, cooked for an hour at 100oC (timed from start of boiling) in maize cob ash solution (in 1:150 dilution with water), sun dried and ground into meals.

The whole velvet bean (WVB) and cracked velvet bean (CVB) meals were incorporated into broilers starter (0-28 days) diets at 25 and 30% for each meal respectively. The control contained no velvet bean meal (Table 1).

Table 1.  Ingredient composition of the experimental diets

Ingredients

Control

 

Whole velvet bean

Cracked velvet bean

25%

30%

25%

30%

Maize

55.0

45.0

45.0

45.0

45.0

Soybean meal

12.0

5.50

3.00

5.50

3.00

Groundnut cake

16.0

7.50

5.00

7.50

5.00

Velvet bean meal

-

25.0

30.0

25.0

30.0

Wheat offal

5.00

5.00

5.00

5.00

5.00

Palm kernel meal

2.00

2.00

2.00

2.00

2.00

Fish meal

6.00

6.00

6.00

6.00

6.00

Bone meal

3.00

3.00

3.00

3.00

3.00

Lysine

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.25

Methionine

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.25

Vit/Tm premix*

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.25

Total

100.00

100.00

100.00

100.00

100.00

Calculated analysis, %

Crude protein (CP)

22.3

 

21.9

 

21.6

ME, kcal/kg

2873

2891

2918

2891

2918

* To provide the following per kg of feed:.
Vit. A, 10,000iu; Vit D3, 1500iu; Vit. E, 3iu, Vit. K, 2mg; ribofl, 3mg; pantothenic acid, 6mg; niacin, 15mg; choline, 5mg; Vit. B 12, 0.08mg; folic acid, 4mg; Mn, 8mg; Zn, 0.5mg; Iodine, 1.0mg, 1.0mg; Co, 1.2mg; Cu, 10mg; Fe, 20mg.

Each diet was fed to 50 Anak broilers in a completely randomised design (CRD) replicated 5 times. Each replicate contained 10 birds. The birds were housed in concrete floored pens covered with wood shaving as the litter material and measured 3m x 3m in length and width respectively. The birds were weighed at the beginning of the experiment and weekly thereafter. Feed intake (pen basis) was measured daily.

The data collected were subjected to analysis of variance (Snedecor and Cochran 1967). Where the analysis of variance indicated significant treatment effects, the means were compared using Duncan's New Multiply Range Test as outlined by Obi (1990)


Results

The data on the performance of the young broiler chicks fed on the five experimental diets are shown in Table 2.

Table 2.  Performance of broiler starter chicks fed velvet bean diets

Parameters

Control

 

WVB

CVB

SEM

25%

30%

25%

30%

Initial weight, g

76.0

76.5

76.1

77.7

76.3

0.90

Final weight, g

895ab

862.ab

680b

944a

857ab

5.13

Daily growth rate, g

39.0ab

37.4ab

32.9b

41.3a

37.2ab

2.47

Daily feed intake, g

77.3

73.6

71.6

86.2

70.7

2.79

Feed conversion ratio

1.98

1.99

2.22

2.14

1.94

0.21

abc: Means within a row with different superscripts differ significantly (P<0.05)

The growth rates of birds fed on 25% WVB, 25% CVB and 30% CVB diets were similar to the control.. Birds fed 30%WVB had a lower growth rate. Feed intake and feed to gain ratio did not differ among treatments.


Discussion

It was a major objective of the experiment to investigate whether the beneficial effect of cooking in local alkaline solution in reducing the L-Dopa content of velvet bean (Wanjekeche 2001) could also improve its nutritive value for broiler chicks. There have been studies in which soaking and cooking in water have been used as treatments to improve the nutritional value of Mucuna pruriens for monogastrics in general and poultry in particular and results have been inconsistent. This lack of consistency on the performance of birds fed processed velvet bean diets may be attributed to the processing methods used. The methods do not seem to be good enough to remove the anti-nutritional factors in the seeds. For example, poor performances at 20 and 30% dietary inclusion levels of processed velvet bean in broilers were observed by Udedibie et al (2001) using soaked and cooked velvet bean and Emenalom (2002) using cracked soaked and cooked velvet beans diets,m respectively. In the present experiment, cooking was done in maize-cob-ash solution, whereas in the above mentioned experiments cooking was done in water. The addition of velvet bean meals so processed significantly improved the performance of the broilers contrary to earlier reports. These effects on performance were seen in both the processing methods and dietary inclusion levels.

The growth rate recorded by the 30%WVB group was better than that earlier reported in literature for velvet beans cooked in water. For example, Emenalom (2004) observed growth rates of 81.9, 87.5 and 43.9% (relative to the control) in broiler chicks fed 20% water-soaked and cooked, calcium hydroxide soaked and cooked, and calcium hydroxide soaked velvet bean meals, respectively. Emenalom (2002) had earlier observed growth rates of 83.3% (relative to the control) in broilers fed 30% cracked soaked and cooked velvet bean meal. Therefore, the improved growth rates of 84.2 and 95.2% (relative to the control) elicited in the present study for 30% whole and cracked velvet bean diets respectively, might be ascribed in part to the method of processing.

Velvet bean has been reported to contain toxic substances, which affect the performance of non-ruminant animals (Mary Josephine and Janardhanan 1992, Udedibie and Carlini 1998). Attempts aimed at reducing these toxic substances have shown no more than partial detoxification when fed to broilers (Emenalom and Udedibie1998; Carmen et al 1999, Udedibie et al 2001, Emenalom 2002, Emenalom 2004). Some authors have blamed the toxicity of velvet bean on the L-Dopa content (Pieris et al 1980, Afolabi et al 1985, Mary Josephine and Janardhanan 1992). If that is the case cooking in maize-cob ash solution as reported by Wanjekeche (2001) may have reduced the L-Dopa content of the seed hence the improved performance at the highest dietary level contrary to earlier reports.
 

Conclusions


Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the International Foundation for Science (IFS), Sweden for financing the research.


References

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Received 1 June 2005; Accepted 4 September 2005; Published 1 December 2005

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