Replacing maize with fruit peels in broiler diets could benefit poultry farmers

The researchers from universities in South Africa (Limpopo) and Nigeria found the pineapple and orange peels maintained nutrient digestibility and enhanced some carcass traits and meat quality. While growth performance was slightly compromised, they concluded the fruit mix offered a sustainable alternative.

Study overview and objectives

This study, led by scientists from the University of Limpopo, Nigeria, evaluated the effect of partial replacement of maize meal with peels from pineapples and oranges on growth indices, apparent nutrient digestibility, carcass characteristics and sensory attributes of broiler chickens.

Birds and diet treatments

Day-old unsexed Ross 308 broiler chickens (n = 480) were allocated randomly into 4 diets in a completely randomised design. Each diet had 6 replicates of 20 birds. The 4 dietary treatments were:

• control (0 g kg− 1 peels);
• 50 g kg− 1 pineapple peels (PP);
• 50 g kg− 1 orange peels (OP);
• and 25 g kg− 1 each of pineapple and orange peels (POP).

Feed and fresh water were offered ad libitum. The experiment lasted for 56 days.

Growth and digestibility results

Results showed that the dietary treatments influenced all the growth parameters measured with birds in the control diet doing better (P < 0.05) than the treated diets. The apparent nutrient digestibility results showed that birds fed the pineapple/orange mixed peels diet were similar to the control group in crude protein (71.53 vs. 76.22%) and ash digestibility (64.01 vs. 59.12%).

The birds fed the mixed peels diet had higher dry matter (83.55 vs. 83.03%) and nitrogen-free extract (95.89 vs. 93.26%) digestibility values than those fed the control diet.

Carcass performance findings

The carcass results indicated that the control diets did better than the other treatments only in the live weight (1,410.25 g) of the birds. In the dressing percentage (73.73 vs. 69%) and drumstick weight (10.01 vs. 8.99%), birds on the pineapple/orange mixed peels did better than those on the control, while there were no differences between them and those on the control diet in most of the other carcass parameters measured.

Improved meat quality

Meat from birds fed the pineapple/orange mixed peels had better aroma and tenderness than that of the control group. It was concluded that 50 g kg− 1 of maize could be replaced with an equal mixture of pineapple and orange peels in the diet of broiler chickens.