RESPONSE OF STARTER CHICKS TO DIETARY LEVELS OF GROUNDNUT CAKE AS REPLACEMENT FOR SOYA BEAN CAKE

Abstract

A feeding trial was carried out to investigate the effects of graded levels of groundnut cake (GNC) as replacement for soya bean cake (SBC) in broiler starter diets at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Two hundred and forty (240) day old Cobb-500 strains of broiler chicks were used in this experiment in a Complete Randomized Design. Parameters assessed were daily feed intake (DFI), daily weight gain (DWG), final weight gain (FWG), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and mortality as it occurred. The result obtained from this research revealed that there were significant (P<0.05) differences in daily feed intake, daily weight gain and final weight while no significant (P>0.05) difference was observed in initial weight and feed conversion ratio. The highest feed consumption was recorded in treatment three (52.87g) while the least was obtained at 100% level of inclusion of GNC. The result also showed that chickens in the control group had the highest final weight of (816.55g). Daily weight gain was higher in chickens fed the control diet (27.21g) while those in treatment five showed the least daily weight gain. Furthermore, the best feed conversion ratio was obtained from chickens fed the control diet (1.9) while the poorest result was obtained among those in treatment three. It was concluded that broiler chickens fed SBC at 100% level of inclusion produced highest FWG of (816.55g/b) and therefore performed better than the GNC based diet.