Comparative Assessment of Chili Pepper and Amprolium on Apparent Digestibility and Prevention of Coccidiosis in Broilers

Abstract

A trial was conducted for 56 days to assess the efficacy of Chili Pepper (CP) as an alternative additive to synthetic coccidiostat on performance, apparent digestibility and prevention of coccidiosis in broilers. Completely Randomized Design (CRD) was used to allot 210 a-day old Hybro chicks to three dietary treatments with seven replicates of ten birds each. Diet 1 which is a Positive Control (PC) supplemented with amprolium. Diet 2 was a Negative Control (NC) without amprolium and chili pepper, while Diet 3 was supplemented with 1.25% chili pepper.

Results showed that at starter phase an Average Feed Intake (AFI) and Average Body Weight Gain (ABWG) were similar in birds fed with diet 1 (PC) amprolium supplemented type, and diet 3 (CP) chili pepper supplemented type compared with diet 2 (NC) without amprolium and chili pepper supplementation. At finisher phase, feed : gain ratios observed in birds fed diet 1 (1.96), and birds fed diet 3 (1.98) were better when compared with those birds fed diet 2 (2.12). Percentage mortality (5.71%) was higher (p<0.05) in diet 2 as compared with diets 1 and 3 (2.85%) (1.42%), respectively. At the starter phase, a similar trend in apparent digestibility was observed throughout all treatment groups while at the finisher phase, higher (p<0.05) values of 88.31%, 78.11%, 76.91%, 78.88% and 64.44% were recorded for dry matter, crude protein, crude fibre, ether extract and ash, respectively, for diet 3, compared to diets 1 and 2.At both starter and finisher phases, oocytes shedding per gram of faeces (OPG) in diets 1 (61.8and 40.6) and diet 3 (70.1 and49.3) were lowered (p<0.05) compared to diet 2 (83.6 and98.9), respectively. These findings indicate that supplementation of chili pepper at 1.25% in feed improved production performance, characterized by faster growth rate, higher nutrient digestibility, reduced mortality and coccidia load, in broilers chickens.