| dc.description.abstract | Orphan legumes that are native to semi-arid areas of southern Africa, such as marama (Tylosema
esculentum) bean, hold promise as sustainable nutrient sources in conventional broiler diets. Yet,
their nutritive value remains largely unexplored, and the presence of antinutrients could poten tially compromise their nutritional quality. Therefore, this study evaluated the effect of full-fat
marama bean meal (MBM) on growth performance and physiological and meat quality param eters of growing broiler chickens. Fourteen-day-old male Ross 308 broilers (n = 385; 359.7 ±
25.48 g live-weight) were randomly assigned to five experimental diets formulated by including
MBM in a standard broiler grower diet at 0 (MBM0), 16.25 (MBM16), 32.49 (MBM32), 48.74
(MBM49), and 64.98 g/kg (MBM65). Each diet was randomly allocated to 7 replicate pens
(experimental units). Diets had no effect on feed intake, but body weight gain and final body
weight showed negative linear responses, while feed conversion ratio showed linear and positive
quadratic responses (P < 0.05) to increasing MBM levels. There were negative quadratic effects
(P < 0.05) for eosinophils, lymphocytes, and alanine transaminase, whereas linear and quadratic
responses (P < 0.05) were recorded for alkaline phosphatase. Hemoglobin, neutrophils, mono cytes, and albumin:globulin ratio linearly decreased (P < 0.05), whereas red blood cells, sym metric dimethylarginine, cholesterol, and lipase increased linearly with MBM levels. Linear
increases (P < 0.05) were recorded for shear force and proventriculus, gizzard, pancreas, duo denum, jejunum, and ileum sizes. In contrast, linear decreases were observed for carcass weights,
breast weight, and breast meat pH. In conclusion, higher levels of MBM resulted in poor growth
performance, low carcass weights, and heavier visceral organs, possibly due to anti-nutritional
compounds in MBM. | en_US |
