Toxicological Impact of Processed Jatropha Curcas Kernel Meals on the Gut Morphology and Kidney of Broiler Chicks

Abstract

A 21-days feeding trial was conducted to investigate the toxicity of feeding broiler chicks with differently processed (Raw Defatted Meal RDM, Toasted Defatted Meal TDM, Cooked Defatted Meal CDM, Lye Defatted Meal LDM and Sand Roasted Defatted Meal ZRDM) Jatropha curcas kernel meals. A total of 180 day-old Marshal strain unsexed broiler chicks were used for this experiment. There were six dietary treatments of 30 birds per treatment and 3 replicate of 10 birds each in a complete randomized design. Each differently processed Jatropha curcas kernel meals were used to replace one-third of the soybean meal in the control diet. The results suggest that Heat treatment showed superior impact in reduction of atinutritional factors, however, with minimal effect on the saponin and phorbol esters present in the Jatropha curcas kernel meals. Varying levels of villi erosion, loss of mucosal glands and infiltration by inflammatory cells was observed in the small intestine while the nephro-histopathology showed varying levels of necrosis, disruption and degeneration of kidney cells. It can be concluded that broiler chicks cannot tolerate 10.33% inclusion level of differently processed Jatropha curcas kernel meals However, further experiment should be carried out to examine the performance of broiler chicks on bio-treated samples of the processed Jatropha curcas kernel meals.