Evaluation of Canistel (Pouteria campechiana) Fruit Meal as a Feed Ingredient for Poultry

Canistel (Pouteria campechiana) is an underutilized fruit tree species found in many parts of the world. The objective of this study was to evaluate suitability of canistel fruit meal (CFM) as a feed ingredient for broiler chickens. Giving completely randomize design, ninety broiler chickens in 30 floor pens received one of five diets ad libitum from day 21 to 42. The nutritionally balanced control diet contained 40% maize meal. In the other four test diets, CFM quantitatively replaced 25, 50, 75 and 100% of maize meal from the control diet. One randomly selected bird from each cage was killed on day 42 to determine the visceral organ weights and tibia ash contents. Breast meat samples were subjected to sensory evaluation by ten panelists. No mortality or visible health problems were observed throughout the experiment. Except between day 21 and 28, CFM had no significant effect on feed and water intake. Increasing levels of dietary CFM linearly reduced the live weight on day 42 and weight gain while increasing the feed conversion ratio (FCR). However, above parameters of the birds fed diet with 10% CFM (25% substitution of maize meal) was not significantly different from those of the birds fed control diet (40% maize meal). The transit times of digesta, relative weights of gizzard, pancreas, heart and abdominal fat pad, tibia ash contents and organoleptic properties of the meat in the birds were not significantly different among treatments. Birds fed 40% CFM had higher relative gut length and liver weight compared to those fed 40% maize meal. It was concluded that canistel fruit meal could be included up to 10%, substituting 25% of the maize fraction of the broiler diet without any delirious effects on growth performance. Further research is needed to determine the important nutritional indices of CFM.