Resumen

MARIN, Alfredo; CARIAS, Diamela; CIOCCIA, Anna María  y  HEVIA, Patricio. Valor nutricional de los follajes de musa paradisiaca y clitoria ternatea como diluyentes de raciones para pollos de engorde. INCI [online]. 2003, vol.28, n.1, pp.50-56. ISSN 0378-1844.

Summary Considering the need to reduce feeding cost in growing chickens, the possibility was tested of offering less food or of diluting a commercial ration with locally available foliages: Clitoria Ternatea or Musa Paradisiaca (plantain). A biological assay was conducted using fast growing chicks fed a control diet or fed the same diet but diluted with 10% plantain or 10% Clitoria dried leaves. A group of chicks fed the control diet but offered a lower level of intake was also included. Using the data from this assay and the proximate analysis of the foliages, feed efficiency, protein efficiency ratio (PER), net protein ratio (NPR) and the metabolizable energy of both foliages were calculated. The inclusion of either Clitoria or plantain leaves into the control diet did not affect feed efficiency or the capacity of converting feed into live weight in the chickens. There were slight differences in the protein quality and in the acceptability of the diets diluted with 10% Clitoria or plantain leaves. This caused chickens fed the diet diluted with Clitoria to grow slightly less than the controls. However, both of the foliage-diluted diets produced a better growth than the control diet, when the intake of this diet was reduced in 10%. In consequence, in terms of the growth achieved, it appears that it is more convenient to dilute the diets with dried leaves than to offer less food. From the foliages studied here, plantain leaves seemed more appropriate since they represent a readily available byproduct and resulted in a slightly better growth

Palabras clave : Clitoria ternatea ; Musa Paradisiaca ; Pollos de Engorde; Valor Nutricional.