Comparative Study of Rapeseed Meal and Fermented Rapeseed Meal Replacing Soybean Meal in Diet on Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility and Economics in Broiler Chicken

Background: The escalating costs of soybean meal (SBM), coupled with environmental and socioeconomic considerations, necessitate exploration into alternative protein sources. Due to consistent increase in feed cost of SBM it was the need of hour to explore the alternatives for SBM. The present experiment was designed to evaluate the comparative study of rapeseed meal (RSM) and fermented rapeseed meal (FRSM) replacing soybean meal in diet on performance of broilers. Methods: Four hundred twenty, day old Vencobb-430Y straight run broiler chicks were randomly distributed into seven treatment groups with four replicates in each having fifteen chicks. The seven treatments were control group (T1), basal diet with 5% RSM (T2), basal diet with 10% RSM (T3), basal diet with 15% RSM (T4), basal diet with 5% FRSM (T)5, basal diet with 10% FRSM (T6), basal diet with 15% FRSM (T7). Result: The live body weight and cumulative weight gain at the end of 6th week significantly (P less than 0.01) decreased in T4 (15% RSM) and T7 (15% FRSM) as compared to control group T1. At 6th week, significantly (P less than 0.01) better cumulative feed conversion ratio was recorded in groups T1, T2, T3, T5 and T6 as compared to groups T4 and T7. There were non-significant differences for dry matter digestibility (%), nitrogen retention (%), ether extract digestibility (%) and crude fibre digestibility (%) in all groups. The highest net profit per kg live body weight was observed in treatment group T5 followed by groups T6, T3, T2, T1, T7 and T4. Thus, it was concluded that the inclusion of RSM and FRSM up to 10% level with replacing soybean meal do not have any adverse effect on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and improved economics of broiler production. Moreover, the inclusion of 5% FRSM with replacing soybean meal in diet has more economically profitable without affecting production performance in broilers.