PERFORMANCE OF BROILER STARTER ON CHICKENS FED HIGH FIBRE DIETS SUPPLEMENTED WITH ESSENTIAL MICROBES

Abstract

The performance of broilers fed high fibre diets supplemented with probiotics was examined using a total number of one hundred and eighty (180) day old Cobb 500 breed of broilers. The birds were randomly assigned to six (6) dietary treatments replicated three (3) times. Each replicate comprises of ten (10) birds. The experiment was a 2x3 factorial laid in complete randomized designed, which comprised of 2 levels (0 and 2mls) of essential microbes and 3 levels (2.5, 5and7.5%) of fibre at starter phase. Birds were given the same quantity of feed measured in grams, for the treatments combination T1,T2,T3,T4,T5 and T6 respectively. The result for the effect of main and interactive effect of probiotics and fibre on growth performance of broiler starter birds indicate that effective microorganism activated solution (EMAS) did not show significant (P<0.05) differences on initial weight(IW),final weight(FW),weight gain per day(WG/D),average feed intake(AFI),feed conversion ratio(FCR),protein intake(PI),protein efficiency ratio(PER) and energy efficiency ratio(EER), except that of fibre that indicates significant (P<0.05) increase in the AFI (41.2, 43.4 and 42.0g/birds) and FCR (1.53, 1.62 and 1.67).