News Date : 11 May, 2023
Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN) has envisioned to be an innovative and research intensive in agriculture and natural resources. The university has not yet reached the pinnacle of research, but it is surely making strides to ensure that it lives up to its goal. Today we would like to share with you research that was done by the Department of Animal Sciences. The department’s mandate within the institution is to provide knowledge, innovation and technology on the overall productivity and welfare of livestock; this includes, animal nutrition, meat science disease prevention, breeding and reproduction. This is to nurture the animals to give us the products and services that are needed by humans. In today’s information sharing we will look at research done by Ms Chandapiwa Moses, a PhD student, Dr Freddy Manyeula, Ms Malebogo Radikara, Dr Molebeledi Mareko and Professor Othusitse Madibela. The team researched on carcass characteristics and meat quality of chickens fed malted sorghum from red and white varieties.
In the research published in the journal, Poultry, the researchers stated that, it is common practice to use maize as a major source of energy in poultry diets. But maize is also used as a staple food by humans in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In some developed countries, maize may also be cultivated for industrial use. Thus, the multiple uses of maize create stiff competition among humans, livestock, and industry, leading to its soaring price in the market; and therefore becoming unsustainable for small-scale resource limited poultry farmers. That is why BUAN scientists, led by Prof Madibela decided to explore an alternative source of energy ingredient that may be sustainable and cheaper for both resource limited poultry farmers and small-scale feed producers.
In Botswana conditions, the alternative crop to maize is sorghum. This is because in comparison to maize, sorghum can be grown successfully on relatively poor soils with lower soil moisture , such as in semi-arid environments such as Botswana. This is due to superior leaf and roots attributes that preserve and absorb water more effectively when exposed to stressful drought conditions. However, the major challenge on the efficient usage of sorghum in poultry diets is the presence of high amounts of anti-nutritional factors such as tannins that lower poultry performance. Tannins present in chicken diets reduces feed consumption due to reduced tastiness, resulting in chicken gaining less weight and turning feed less efficiently into meat. However, white sorghum varieties contain less tannins implying that these varieties may be potential replacements for maize in poultry diets. Employing indigenous knowledge technology can also become handy in solving societal problems. Applying old age technology of malting, BUAN scientists also found that malted sorghum has less tannins. Therefore, combining the use of indigenous technology of malting and usage of white variety sorghum, BUAN scientists found that performance and meat quality of broiler chickens consuming maize diets and those eating malted white sorghum were the same. This preliminary research has led to further experiments by Ms Chandapiwa Moses and other post graduate students, which will test the effectiveness of malted sorghum on egg quality, heat resistance, gut microbiology, and bone strength of chickens. Positive results from this research have the potential to be applied to other non-ruminant species like pigs, which will go a long way in reducing feed costs and diversifying the use of sorghum grains. These new experiments will be supported by research funds received from the Ministry of Communication, Knowledge and Technology.
