Deep stacking poultry litter as feed ingredient in livestock production

Abstract

The compelling need to harness the potentials of the numerous agro-industrial by-products and the so-called “wastes” as part replacement for the more expensive conventional feed ingredients have been seriously expressed. This need has arisen mainly from the increasing demand and supply deficit of conventional feed resources with a concomitant sharp rise in their cost prices. The net effect of increased unit cost of the conventional feed resources is increased cost of the compounded rations, which by extension gives rise to increased cost of meat and animal products. It then becomes highly imperative that other sources for rapid livestock output to meet the growing human demands for animal protein foods are sourced. Such other sources should be cheap and nutritionally adequate for feeding animals with the aim of lowering the cost of producing meat. One of such measure is the recycling of poultry litter as part replacement for soya bean in livestock nutrition. Poultry litter is the by-product of poultry production, which should be managed in an environmentally friendly manner. As observed in this study, poultry litter contains 20% crude protein, 621.41 ME kcal kg−1, and substantial amounts of minerals that could be exploited in feeding livestock. This study has explored the possibility of including poultry litter in diets in view of its contents.