Effect of supplementing rice bran with sweet potato leaf meal and earthworms on growth performance of Muscovy and Pekin ducks

Pham Tan Nha

Cantho University, Vietnam
ptnha@ctu.edu.vn

Abstract

240 ducks, 120 of local Muscovy and 120 of Pekin ducks, from twenty-eight day-old were allocated in a Completely Randomized Design to 4 treatments with four replications for a 49 day growth trial. All birds were given a basal diet of rice bran and supplemented with sweet potato leaf meal and earthworms  to replace soybean and dried fish. The treatments were:  

• RB: Free access to rice bran supplemented with minerals (50% salt: 50% limestone) and vitamin premix
• RBSP: Free access to a mixture of rice bran and sweet potato leaf meal (60:40)
• RBSPEW: Same as RBSP but with fresh earthworms offered at 5% of the diet (DM basis) (about 5 g fresh earthworms per 100 g Live weight of the ducks).
• RBSPLM: Same as RBSP but with supplementation of synthetic lysine and methionine (quantities the same as from the earthworms).

Dry matter (DM)  intakes were were higher for RB ( 147g/day) than  RBSPEW (140g/day) and RBSPLM (141g/day), and higher for Pekin (169 g/day) than Muscovy (117 g/day). Average daily weight gain were higher for RBSPEW and RBSPLM (27 and 26 g/day, respectively) than for RB and RBSP (23 g/day).  Pekin ducks had higher weight hgain ( 27g/day) than Muscovy ducks ( 22g/day). FCR on Muscovy ducks was better than for Pekin ducks (5.4 Vs 6.2).

Key words: Feed conversion, foliages, local resources