Perspectives on the Commercial Broiler Industry in Samoa: Constraints and Opportunities

The broiler industry in Samoa is rudimentary mainly as a result of high dependence on imported feed and feed ingredients. However, the most significant observations from replacing one or two imported feed ingredients with coconut byproducts was the inverse relationship between levels of inclusion, the cost of broiler meat and performance traits such as growth rate and feed conversion ratio (FCR). This is because coconut by-products have highly variable composition such as residual fat (70-175 g kg-1), gross energy (3679 - 5108 kcal kg-1) and fibre (90-302 g kg-1). In-addition the lysine content is very low (4.3 g kg-1) compared to soybean (35.4 g kg-1) and fish (54.4 g kg-1) meals. Dietary intake of copra products based diets is further compounded by rancidity and palatability problems from free fatty acids. Consequently in Samoa it might not be feasible or economical for broiler producers to strive for very high productivity using local feed ingredients.