Effect of Azolla feeding on the growth, feed conversion ratio, blood biochemical attributes and immune competence traits of growing turkeys

In the recent past,few studies have been carried out in chicken to assess the effect of meal and raw feeding on the performance of chicken. If turkeys effectively use unconventional feedstuffs like without reducing the performance, it will increase the profitability of turkey business. Hence, a study was carried out to evaluate the effect of dried vis-a-vis raw as choice feeding on the growth, feed conversion ratio (FCR), blood biochemical attributes, and immune competence traits of growing turkeys under intensive system. A total of 72, 8-week-old grower turkey poults of black variety were randomly distributed into three dietary treatments having three replicates each with eight birds. The birds of the control group (T1) were fed a basal diet (CP - 19.71% and ME - 2789.79 Kcal/kg), while the other group (T2) and choice-feeding group (T3) were fed 5% of basal diet replaced by dry powder on DM basis and along with basal diet, respectively. There was no significant difference among the different groups in the average weekly weight gain during the entire experiment. FCR was significantly better (p