Growth Performance, Carcass Characteristics, Hematobiochemical Parameters, Cecal Bacterial Load and Economic Efficiency of Koekoek Chickens Fed Azolla

Subject Areas :

M. Menale ^{1 *} , B. Asmare ² , Y. Mekuriaw ³ , M. Yigrem ⁴ , S. Yilkal ⁵

1 - Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Bahir Dar University, P.O. Box 5501, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
2 - Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Bahir Dar University, P.O. Box 5501, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
3 - Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Bahir Dar University, P.O. Box 5501, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
4 - Department of Animal Science, Debark University, Debark, Ethiopia
5 - Agriculture Development Center, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Received: 2025-08-11 Accepted : 2025-11-02 Published : 2025-12-01

Keywords: Azolla filiculoides, biochemical attributes, cecal bacteria, economic efficiency, growth performance,

Abstract :

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of azolla meal (AZM) on growth performance, carcass characteristics, hematobiochemical parameters, cecal bacterial load and economic efficiency of Koekoek chickens. One hundred forty-four chickens were randomly distributed into four treatment groups of 12 chickens in 3 replications in completely randomized design. The first treatment (T1) was control group, in which conventional chicken diet was provided without AZM, whereas T2, T3 and T4 contained 5%, 10% and 15% AZM, respectively. At the end of the experiment, nine chicks per treatment were slaughtered for carcass characteristics assessment. From this slaughtered chickens, cecal content was collected for bacterial load analysis. Before slaughtering, blood samples were collected to analyze their hematobiochemical pa-rameters. The results indicate that the inclusion of up to 10% azolla did not significantly differ (P>0.05) from the control group in both growth performance and carcass characteristics. Lymphocytes and packed cell volume (PCV) of T1 were significantly greater (P<0.05) than those of T3. Total protein (TP), albumin, globulin and glucose contents of T3 were significantly greater (P<0.05) than T4. Cecal bacterial load indi-cated that Lactobacillus was significantly greater (P<0.001) in T2 and T3, whereas E. coli was significantly lower in T3. The results of the cost‒benefit analysis revealed that chickens fed 10% azolla presented sig-nificantly greater (P<0.05) economic efficiency. Overall, this experiment implies that dietary inclusion of 10% azolla can increase net income without affecting the growth performance, carcass characteristics and health of chickens.

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