Following the ban on antibiotic growth promoters in feed, poultry nutritionists are increasingly interested in the use of functional feeds. Raw banana flour (TPM) contains large amounts of oligosaccharides (which can act as prebiotics) and antioxidants, making it a potential functional feed for broiler chickens. It is Oktafia Munita Rahmawati, a student of the Master of Animal Science FPP UNDIP who has conducted research on the use of raw banana flour as a functional feed ingredient for broiler chickens. The bananas used are “Norowito” bananas with a slightly sour taste, so people don’t like them. The study used 392 broiler chickens which were divided into four groups, including CONTROL (chickens that received control feed), TPM (chickens that received 5% TPM in feed), TPMPRO (5% TPM plus 0.05% probiotics) and TPMZIM (5 % TPM plus 0.05% multienzyme). The results showed that administration of 5% TPM with or without probiotics and multienzymes could improve the feed conversion value (FCR), without affecting broiler carcass characteristics.
This research was fully funded by UNDIP through the “World Class Research Diponegoro University (WCRU)” research scheme with contract number 118-06/UN7.6.1/PP/2021. This research also collaborated with Professor from Osmaniye Korkut Ata University, Osmaniye, Turkey, namely Prof. Tugay Ayasan. Data from this research has been published in a reputable international journal (indexed by Scopus and Web of Science), namely Veterinary Medicine and Science, 2023;1–9 with DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/vms3.1070. The title of the article is “Effect of unripe banana flour as a functional feed ingredient on growth performance, internal organs relative weight and carcass traits of broilers” and can be read in more detail at the following link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi /full/10.1002/vms3.1070. In the future, it is hoped that more students from the FPP UNDIP Masters of Animal Science study program will research the use of local resources for livestock and carry out international publications so that they can enhance UNDIP’s reputation as a world-class research university.
