Evaluation of Neem (Azadirachta Indica) Leaves Meal Supplementation on Growth Performance of Broiler Finishers in Cold and Hot Seasons in Kebbi State Sudan Savanna, Nigeria

The use of plant resources in poultry production has gained popularity as growth promoters especially as a result of increasing cost of conventional additives in developing nations. Similarly, weather fluctuations were reported to affect the performance of birds under conventional management. On this backdrop, two feeding trials were conducted in the cold and hot seasons of 2023/2024, involving 144 unsexed day old broiler chicks each to determine the optimum level of supplementation of Neem Leaf Meal (NLM) in broiler finisher diets in cold and hot seasons. The experiment was laid-out in a completely randomized design (CRD). The birds were randomly allocated to four treatment groups of thirty six birds per treatment; each treatment was replicated three times with twelve birds per replicate. The four groups were randomly allocated to four diets containing varying levels of NLM of 0, 3, 6, and 9% representing diets 1 to 4, respectively. The bird’s performances were measured and calculated in terms of body weight gain, feed intake, water intake and Feed conversion ratio (FCR). There were no significant differences in cold season (P>0.05). Similarly, in the hot season, supplementing finisher diets with levels of NML shows no significant effect (P>0.05) on all the parameters measured except in FCR. Feed conversion ratio had better (lower) values in T2 (1.71) and T3 (1.71). High values for FCR were recorded in T4 (1.90). This result indicated a trend showing that additional NLM leads to poor FCR. The result of T-test to compare the seasons shows no significant effect (P>0.05) when NLM is supplemented on the performance of finisher birds. It is concluded that supplementing broilers with NLM finisher stage in both cold and hot seasons can improve performance since it influenced better FCR of 1.71. It is recommended that NLM supplementation should be adopted in hot season in an inclusion of up to 6% for broiler production since it improved better feed utilization.