Department of Animal Nutrition and Forage Science, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, P M B 7267, Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria
Ukachukwu, S.N., Department of Animal Nutrition and Forage Science, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, P M B 7267, Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria
Two experiments were carried out to investigate the response of broiler chicks to substitution of composite cassava meal (CCM) for maize in broiler diets as well as to assess the impact of supplementing CCM-based diet with palm oil and/or methionine on performance of starter broiler chicks. In experiment 1 six diets in which CCM replaced maize at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100% and designated T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6, respectively were fed to 144 day-old broiler chicks in a completely randomized design (CRD) experiment. In experiment 2, five diets designated D1 (control, without CCM), D2 (maize-CCM type diet), D3 (maize-CCM type diet with methionine supplementation), D4 (maize-CCM type diet with palm oil supplementation), and D5 (maize-CCM type diet with palm oil and methionine supplementation) were fed to 150 day-old broiler birds in a CRD experiment. At end of experiment 1 (day 56), daily feed intakes (DFI) of birds in T1, T2, T3, and T4 were similar (P>0.05), but significantly lower (P<0.05) than the DFI of birds fed diet T6. Birds fed diets T1, T2, T3, and T4 had similar (P>0.05) final live weight, daily weight gain (DWG), feed conversion (FCR), and protein efficiency ratio (PER), which were significantly better (P<0.05) than the final live weight, DWG, FCR, and PER of birds fed diet T6. Generally, there was increasing intake as the CCM inclusion level increased, while the response parameters showed a general trend of decreasing performance as the inclusion level of CCM increased. On economics of production of finished broilers, the cost/Kg feed, on relative basis using the control diet (T1) as baseline, ranged from 100% to 79.62% for T1-T6 respectively. Feeding of diets T4 and T5 yielded the highest (P<0.05) gross margin (GM) values that were however similar to the GM values of birds fed diets T2 and T3 but higher (P<0.05) than the GM value of birds fed diet T1, while the GM of birds fed dietT6 was the lowest (P<0.05). In experiment 2, there were significant (P<0.05) differences among treatment means of all the parameters. Birds fed D4 and D5 diets had significantly higher (P<0.05) body weight (BWt) and daily weight gain (DWG) than birds fed D2 but were similar to those fed D1 (control) and D3.The feed conversion ratios (FCR) and protein efficiency ratios (PER) of D5, D4 and D1 were significantly higher (P<0.05) than those of D2 but similar to those of D3.