GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF BROILER FINISHERS FED PROCESSED CASSAVA PEELS IN A MIXED DIETS

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to evaluate the growth performance of broiler chicken fed processed cassava peels at finishers phase using different processing methods. The cassava peels were processed using five different methods: SUCP(sun dry), BOCP ( boiling), ENCP (ensiling), SOCP ( soaking), NOCP ( control, no cassava peels). Diets formulated contained 10% of each treatment except treatment NOCP which is the control. A total number of one hundred and fifty day-old chicks were purchased from a reputable hatchery and fed commercial feed for four weeks.The birds were alloted into five dietary treatments at fourth week and were fed ad-libitum with the test ingredient. Proximate composition of the feed , daily feed intake (FI) and body weight gain (BWG) were also determined. The values obtained forcrude protein was from (18.08 – 18.99%), crude fibre was from (11.20 – 13.80%), ash was from (4.20- 10.70%) and ether- extract was in the range of 5.42 – 7.40%. Daily feed intake was in the range of 1.45kg in treatment NOCP to 1.75kg)in BOCP, weight gain ranged from1.32 to 1.84kg, final body weight varied from 2.24 – 2.84kg. Feed conversion ratio also vaied from 0.87 in SUCP to 1.25 in NOCP. It can be concluded from the result of this study that substitution of maize with 10% of the differently processed cassava peels improved the growth performance of broiler finisher. Birds on treatment ENCP (ensiled cassava peels) performed better than other treatments on processed cassava peels, but lower than birds on control diet.