Abstract 201

Douglas,JH; Daghir,-NJ

Dep. Animal Sciences, American Univ., Beirut, Lebanon.

Poultry-Science. 1987, 66: 8, 1372-1378; 16 ref.

Diets containing meat-and-bone meal supplements (BM) or fish meal and meat-and-bone meal supplements (FBM) or no animal protein (NP) were given for 21 days to broiler chicks initially 1 day old. Each diet contained 5, 10, 15 or 20% buffalo gourd seed (BGS, Cucurbita foetidissima) or no BGS (controls). Using regression analysis and for all diets there was a significant negative linear effect on weight gain when BGS exceeded 5% of the diet. Growth depression was a result of reduced feed intake and not lower feed utilization. There was no hypertrophy of the pancreas in chicks given BGS diets indicating that presence of a trypsin inhibitor in BGS was not a major antinutritional factor.