It is, therefore, essential to explore alternative feed ingredients. These include diverse non-conventional feeds, such as products from trees.

Such are not effectively utilised in Kenya due to lack of information on their nutritive values, which is useful in determining their feed inclusion levels.

Mathenge plant, Prosopis juliflora, is widely available in the arid and semi-arid lands. Its pods have been incorporated into feeds for cattle, sheep, camel, rabbits, poultry and rats across the globe with better results.

Compared to other livestock species, indigenous chicken rearing remains attractive to poor households because the birds are hardy, adapt well to the rural environment, require less start-up capital and have low maintenance costs. They are a cheap source of animal protein for financially unstable households.

The rise in poultry production translates into more demand for cereals to make feeds. Mathenge pods are an alternative source of food since they are readily available throughout the year in the arid and semi-arid areas. They have quality nutrients; a high protein and energy.

Diet composition of indigenous chickens should be proteins 20 per cent. It is always advised to have a ratio of 1:1 of animal to plant protein sources for optimum amino acid profile).

Protein is the most expensive of all the ingredients in poultry diets. Protein rich feedstuffs include blood meal, fish meal, meat and bone meal, oil seed meals (cotton seed meal, soya bean meal, sunflower meal, ground nut meal), maize germ, corn gluten meal, prosopis pods, beans, peas, insects and earthworms.

Energy should constitute more than 75 per cent of the diet. Energy rich feedstuffs are maize, millet, sorghum, bran (maize and wheat), pollard, roots and tubers. Minerals and vitamins may make up to 5 per cent of diet.

Vitamin rich feedstuffs are greens — young grass, weeds, vegetables (spinach, and cabbage), and vitamin supplements while mineral rich feedstuffs include bone meal, egg shells and mineral supplements.

Benefits of prosopis as poultry feeds

The use of Prosopis juliflora mature pods in compounding livestock feeds can stabilise prices, improve quality and ensure availability.

Many prosopis species are valuable multipurpose resources in their native range, providing timber, firewood, livestock feed, human food, shade, shelter and soil improvement.

The pods, which are high in sugars, carbohydrates, and protein, have been a historic source of food for human populations in north and South America providing flour and other edible products.

In the countries where prosopis was introduced, they are natural forests or plantations, which are harnessed for timber, charcoal, honey, and gums, human and animal feeds.

However, this indigenous knowledge has not followed the prosopis trees and fruits, which are unexploited to provide fodder for livestock in most of Africa and Asia.

Analyses of prosopis flour samples for human consumption from Kenya indicated good nutritional properties.

What we need to do is properly manage the tree because of its invasive nature, harvest the pods, process them and include them in poultry feed formulation to combat competition with maize and other cereals.

Biotechnologies like use of enzymes, probiotics, fermentation, and tannin binders can be used to improve utilisation and may increase inclusion levels as a result of improved digestion.

A research I did indicates that the use of enzymes can increase maize substitution by Prosopis juliflora in poultry diets by 40 per cent.

Improvement as a result of use of biotechnology would mitigate the food insecurity problem for poultry and consequently help alleviate hunger through increased meat and eggs production.