Supplementation of Pearl Grass (Hedyotis corymbosa) on Carcass Weight of Broiler

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of pearl grass (Hedyotis corymbosa) supplemen-tation into the ration on the carcass weight of broiler. The experiment was carried out at the Laboratory of Poultry and Non Ruminant Nutrition, Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Faculty of Animal Husbandry, University of Jambi. The study used one hundred strain Lohmann aged 2 days, broiler chickens fed basal ration supplemented by pearl grass (Hedyotis corymbosa). The chickens were assigned by Com-pletely Randomized Designed into 5 treatments and 4 replications. The treatments were the level of pearl grass supplementation, consisted of M0 (0%, as control), M1 (0,2%), M2 (0,4%), M3 (0,6%) and M4 (0,8%). The variables observed were feed intake (FI), live weight (LW), carcass weight (CW) and carcass percent-age (CP). The results of this study showed that the supplementation of pearl grass significantly (P<0,05) increased the FI, but had no significant effect on the LW, CW and CP. It was concluded that pearl grass supplementation into the broiler ration could be implemented up to 0.8%, however to get the highest CW and CP, the supplementation of 0,6% pearl grass is recommended. Keywords: Broiler, Carcass, Hedyotis corymbosa, Pearl grass.