Growth Performance, Fecal Noxious Gas Emission and Economic Efficacy in Broilers Fed Fermented Pomegranate Byproducts as Residue of Fruit Industry

Byproducts of fruit industry are promising source of nutrients and bioactive compounds. The objective of the present experiment was to evaluate the effect of fermented pomegranate byproducts (FPB) on growth performance, fecal pH and noxious gas emissions; and economic efficacy in broilers. A feeding trial was carried out with 160 day old Ross broilers assigned to four dietary treatments having five replications (8 birds per replicate). The dietary treatments were control (T0), corn-soybean meal based basal diet; and test diets (T1 to T3), T1 = Basal diet + 0.5% FPB; T2 = Basal diet + 1.0% FPB; T3 = Basal diet + 2.0% FPB. The result revealed that, supplementation of FPB (T2 and T3) increased average daily weight gain of broilers during finisher and overall experimental period compared to control (T0) (P <0.05). However, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio remain unaffected (P >0.05) among the dietary treatments. Fecal pH tended to reduce (P <0.05) in response to FPB supplemented group T1 and T3 compared to T0. In addition, fecal ammonia emission was lower (P <0.05) in all FPB supplemented groups (T1, T2 and T3), where hydrogen sulfide emission was reduced in T1 and T2 during incubation (P <0.05). Overall economic analysis indicated that, feed cost per unit of weight gain was lower (P <0.05) in the FPB supplemented T2 and T3 groups. Therefore, it could be concluded that FPB supplementation can significantly improve growth performance, reduce fecal pH and gas emission from excreta; and economical to utilize in broiler diet.