Sorghum can replace yellow maize in poultry diets
Faced with the current COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine war, farmers and policymakers in Botswana are starting to realise the wisdom of self-reliance. Importation of resources for the manufacturing sector is negatively impacted by disruption in trade due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. This includes importation of livestock feeds. Both energy and protein sources for feed formulation are imported and maize, especially yellow maize, is the mainstay ingredient in poultry feeds.
With increasing maize prices, confounded by COVID-19 and Ukraine war and climate change, alternative energy sources are needed. Chandapiwa Moses, a PhD candidate at the Department of Animal Sciences of BUAN and former Mogae-Barclays thinks one such possibility is malted sorghum. From her village upbringing, she recalls that malted sorghum is entrenched in Tswana indigenous knowledge systems of local beer making.
From an agronomic point of view, sorghum as a crop is tolerant to harsh climatic conditions of Botswana. Therefore, Moses went on to test her theory that malted sorghum could be a substitute for yellow maize in poultry diets in her masters thesis in which she was supervised by Freddy Manyeula and Molebeledi Mareko, and Professor Othusitse Madibela. Madibela, (the author of this article) provided mentoring and leadership to the project. The study completely replaced yellow maize with malted sorghum of two varieties (red; Mr Buster and white; Segaolane).
Moses found that malting reduces the crude fibre and some phytochemicals of sorghum grains, especially in the red sorghum variety. Growth performance and feed utilisation were the same between chickens fed yellow maize diets and malted Segaolane diets. Ask what are the implication of this results, Moses excitedly indicated that, this is good and suggests that malted Segaolane can be a suitable replacement for yellow maize grains in chicken diets.
Blood status of birds was also tested, and it was found that chickens fed maize, or sorghum diets had normal blood parameters expected of healthy chickens, suggesting that chickens neither suffered any toxicity nor nutritional deficiencies. But Moses did not stop there. Since the final test is in the quality of the meat product, Moses also assessed carcass/meat attributes of the chickens fed malted sorghum. She found that chickens fed malted sorghum diets were performing like those fed maize in the meat cuts.
The only variance was lower carcass weights of chicken fed malted sorghum diets. However, malted sorghum diets improved drumstick-thigh weight portions, which are popular with consumers.
In general, carcass characteristics, internal organs and meat quality traits of birds fed malted sorghum diets compared well to those fed maize diets. Asked what was her next plan, Moses indicated her intention to keep on testing malted sorghum as part of poultry diets. To achieve this, she enrolled for a PhD programme with BUAN, and this time around she intends to apply the feeding of malted sorghum to layer chickens to determine its effect on egg quality.
Asked to comment on this study, Manyeula, a poultry scientist with huge experience in the poultry industry, indicated that there is a need for locally sourced ingredients to reduce costs and create jobs. Increased production of sorghum will avail surplus sorghum to livestock feeding and this will benefit arable farmers’ income.
Mareko agrees, highlighting the need for use of local resources to achieve United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially reduced poverty, zero hunger and food security at household level in Botswana.
With the introduction of postgraduate sponsorship at BUAN, it is hoped that the university will be able to generate information and develop knowledge that will solve local problems by training high quality scientists for the agricultural sector.