COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOME COMMERCIAL FEEDS SOLD IN AKURE METROPOLIS ON PERFORMANCE OF LAYING BIRDS

Abstract

The comparative analysis of four commercial diets using chemical analysis and performance of laying birds as response criteria was evaluated on one hundred and twenty (120) ISA Brown laying birds of 22 weeks old in a completely randomized design. The commercial diets were coded as CKM, TFM, ABM and ACM. Live weights of the hens were taken at the start and end of the trial so as to determine the average body weight change. The numbers of eggs laid per treatment were recorded daily, and hen day production (HDP) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were calculated. Significant differences (P˂0.05) were found in the proximate compositions with crude protein (CP) values between 14.91% and 17.41%; ether extract (2.50%-4.71%), fibre (3.69%-5.18%) and ash content (13.30%-19.47%). The performance indices were significantly (P˂0.05) influenced by the test diets. Feed intake was between 100.61g and 123.96g/bird with the highest value recorded in birds fed with TFM while the lowest feed intake was recorded in birds fed CKM. Also, HDP value was between 43.33% and 55.04% and was highest for TFM. The best value (2.30) recorded for FCR was from birds fed ACM while birds fed ABM had the least value (2.71). Hence, it can be concluded that these commercial feeds are good for the optimum performance of laying hens although feed TFM gave the best performance output among the feeds.