PERFORMANCE OF FINISHER BROILER CHICKEN FED ENZYME SUPPLEMENTED CORN COB MEAL BASED DIETS

Abstract

The soaring cost of producing poultry feed due to high competition in the conventional feed ingredients calls for action into discovery of avenues to harness the efficiency of agricultural ―waste‖ products to fit in as ingredient in feeding poultry. This, will broaden the ingredient base for poultry feed production. This study therefore, investigated the effect of enzyme supplemented Corn Cob Meal (ECCM) diet on the performance of finisher broiler chicken. The ECCM was used, in a feeding trial with 120 finisher broiler chickens of 28days old. The broilers were randomly assigned to 4 experimental diets in a complete randomized design of 10 broilers each replicated 3 times. The control, TI contained no ECCM, while T2, T3 and T4 contained 5, 10 and 15% ECCM respectively. The birds were managed under deep litter system and fed adli-bitum for 28 days. The result of the performance data collected showed that there was no significant difference (P > 0.05) when the average final weight, average weight gain and feed conversion ratio of the control was compared to T2 and T3 but significantly higher (p<0.05) when compared to T4. The feed intake was similar (P > 0.05) among all the treatment groups. It was concluded that ECCM can be used in broiler diet at up to 10% inclusion rate without deleterious effect on the broilers.