Performance, carcass yield and cost benefit ratio of replacing wheat offal with urea-molasses treated maize cob in broiler chickens

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to investigate the response of broiler chickens to diets containing urea molasses treated maize cob (UMTMC) as a replacement for wheat offal.  Performance, cost benefit ratio and carcass yield were investigated in an experimental period that lasted for eight weeks. One hundred and fifty broilers were allotted to five dietary treatments with three replicates using ten birds per replicate. The five dietary treatments consist of a standard diet (control) and other diets contained UMTMC at 25, 50, 75 and 100% replacement of wheat offal in a maize-soya bean meal based diets formulated for starter and finisher phases Feed consumed, feed conversion ratio (FCR) body weight, cost of feed consumed and Cost of feed/Kg live weight gain were significantly (P<0.05) affected by inclusion of UMTMC at starter and finisher phase. Broilers fed diet containing 25% UMTMC had increased (P<0.05) feed intake (1285.64 g) with improved FCR (1.66) at starter phase. Cost of feed/Kg live weight gain was reduced (P<0.05) for broilers fed diet containing 25% UMTMC at starter phase. Dressing percentage (58.76) was reduced (P<0.05) with inclusion of 100 % UMTMC in broiler diet however, thigh weight increased (P<0.05) from (9.34) at 0% to (11.83) with 100% inclusion of UMTMC. It was concluded that urea molasses treated maize cob can replace wheat offal up to 50% at starter and finisher phase in broiler diet with improved performance without any adverse effects on the carcass.