Nutritional Significance of Tropical Vegetables in Poultry Feeding: A Review

Abstract

In developing nations Nigeria inclusive, most of the cereals grown are for human consumption. Conventional feedstuffs use in livestock production especially in poultry enterprise has intensified the competition for available grains. Consequently, the cost of poultry production is jacked up. Since poultry provides most of the animal protein consumed either in the form of meat or egg, exploring tropical vegetables as a route of escape to reducing the cost of feeding will be a great gain in the poultry enterprise. Tropical vegetables especially the African leafy vegetables (ALVs) are economical and highly nutritive possessing good levels of vitamins, minerals, protein and essential amino acids. The mineral constituent of some tropical vegetables as well as their nutritive impact on the performance, meat quality, egg quality in broiler and laying birds as presented in this review paper. Although, the availability of ALVs all year round, its moisture content level and presence of anti-nutrients may tend to limit its usage in poultry feed, adopting irrigation techniques and improved seedlings as well as exploring the processes of enhancing the nutritional value of ALVs to combat anti-nutrients to tolerable levels by the birds make it possible to be considered as good alternative in poultry diets.