PERFORMANCE AND COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF BROILER CHICKENS FED DIETS CONTAINING DONKEYS’ CAECAL MEAL AS ALTERNATIVE FEEDSTUFF

Abstract

Inadequate feed ingredients, high cost of feeds and thus, cost of poultry products have made researchers to search for alternative protein feedstuff. This Experiment assessed growth performance, economic benefits of broiler chickens as influenced by the diets containing donkeys’ caecal meal (DCM). One hundred and fifty (150) day old Anak breeds were used for this experiment. These birds were randomly assigned to five diets in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) consisting of three replicates with 10 birds per replicate.Five experimental diets were formulated. Diets was substituted with donkeys’ caecal content meal such that diet 1 (T1) served as control (0%) value. Diet 2 (T2) contains 2.5% DCM and diets 3, 4 and 5 (T3, T4 and T5) contained 5.0%, 7.5%, 10% DCM respectively. The experiment lasted for eight (8) weeks (56 days). The results revealed that birds fed diet (T2) had significantly (P<0.05) improved body weight gain (2396.00g), feed intake, superior feed conversion ratio than birds fed the control diet (0% of the test diets (2340.33g). Diet (T2) had highest (P<0.05) values in all the parameters, followed by diet T3 in this experiment. The economic analysis revealed that as the percent of donkey caecal meal increased in diets containing 2.5%-7.5% DCM, the revenue were improved than others. The DCM could be substituted up to 10% without any adverse effect on the broiler chickens.