Performance Evaluation of Broiler Chicks Reared on Alternative Litter Materials

Abstract

The study determines the impact of four litter materials; wood shavings (WS), orange peel (OP), cassava peel (CP) and palm fruit shaft (PS) on the performance of broiler chickens. Two hundred (200) day-old broiler chicks of Arbor-acrebreed were randomly allotted to four litter materials, each with five replicates (10 chicks per replicate) and reared 8 weeks on the same starter and finisher diet. Weight gains (WG), feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR) were measured as performance parameters. The result showed that at 1-10 days of age chicks reared on PS had the higher WG (116.60 g/bird) compared to those reared on the WS and other test litters (106.60-109.40 g/bird) with numerical improvement of FCR (1.72 versus 1.75-1.76). at starter age, birds on WS had the least WG (380.50 g/bird) similar (p>0.05) to those reared on OP and CP but lower (P<0.05) than 426.00 g/bird in those reared on PS. Overall, the birds reared on alternative litter materials compared favourably and in most cases surpassed those reared on WS with reference to WG and better FCR. This thus suggest that broiler chickens could be reared up to 56 days of age using any of the tested litter materials without any adverse effect on the weight changes and feed consumption.