THE EFFECT OF PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF MAIZE WITH ACHA (Digitaria exilis) OFFAL ON PERFORMANCE OF BROILER CHICKENS

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine the performance of broiler chickens fed diets with acha offal (AO) replacing maize. A total of two hundred and forty (240) day-old broilers were randomly allotted into six dietary treatments with AO at 0%, 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5% and 15% with forty birds per treatment. Each treatment had four replicates with 10 birds each in a completely randomized design. Feed and drinking water were served ad libitum throughout the experiment which lasted for 42 days. The results showed that at the starter phase only feed conversion ratio (FCR) was significantly (p<0.05) affected by treatment while others parameters were not significantly different from each other. Chicks fed 12.5% AO had best FCR (1.59) while those fed 0%, 5%, 7.5%, 10% and 15% AO had poor (2.05, 2.08, 2.03 and 2.02, respectively). At finisher phase, final weight (FW), total weight change (TWC), daily weight gain (DWG) and FCR were significantly (p<0.05) affected by treatment. Chickens fed 7.5% - 15% AO had higher FW, TWC and ADG than 0% AO while birds fed 5% AO had lower compared with those fed 0% AO. However, those fed 15% AO had best FCR (2.26) while those fed 0% and 5% had poor (2.46 and 2.33, respectively). It can be concluded that AO can replace maize in broilers’ diets by 12.5% at starter phase and 15.0% at finisher phase without adverse effect on performance.