Effect of Replacing Bone Ash with Eggshell Meal on Nutrient Digestibility and Blood Parameters of Broiler Chickens

One hundred and eighty 28-days-old Arbor Acres broiler birds were utilized in a 28 day experiment to investigate the effect of replacing bone ash with eggshell meal in the diet of broiler birds on their nutrient digestibility and blood parameters. Five experimental diets tagged T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 were formulated to be isocaloric (2865.53 kcal ME/kg) and isonitrogenous (20% crude protein) such that eggshell meal replaced bone ash at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% for treatments T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 respectively. The birds were randomly assigned to the five dietary treatments and replicated twice giving a total of eighteen birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. The study showed that the haematological parameters were not affected (P>0.05) by the treatments except for Corpuscular Haemoglobin which were best (P0.05) by the treatments. It is therefore, recommended that since there was no deleterious and adverse effect of including eggshell meal in the diets on the blood parameters and digestibility of the nutrients, farmers can use eggshell meal as a major source of dietary calcium in broiler’ diets.