Growth performance, carcass characteristics, digestibility and economics of broiler production fed diets containing different levels of camel rumen content in the Semi- Arid Zone of Nigeria

Abstract

The feeding value of different levels of camel rumen content in broiler diet was investigated using 150 Hover marshal broiler chickens from one-day to 63-days of age. The birds were randomly allotted to five /diets with two replicates of 15 birds each. The diets (starter and finisher) were formulated to contain 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% camel rumen content in T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 diets respectively. At nine week of the experiment three birds per replicate were selected for carcass measurement. The backs, hearts, kidneys, lungs, liver and spleen were not significantly (P > 0.05) different among the treatment groups while other parameters were significantly (P<0.05) different among the treatment groups. At week eight of the experiment three birds per replicate were selected for digestibility study. At the starter stage, the daily feed intake and daily weight gain were significantly (P<0.05) different among the treatment groups but only the feed conversion ratio was not affected (P>0.05) by the camel rumen content (CRC) in the diets. However, broiler chicks fed CRC T1 (0%), T2 (5%), T3 (10%) and T4 (15%) had better daily weight gain than those fed T5 (20%). During the finisher stage, all the growth parameters were not affected (P>0.05%) by CRC except final body weight which was affected (P<0.05) by the test material. Economic of production showed that CRC diets were not profitable in terms of cost of feed per kg weight gain during the starter stage. At finisher stage the cost of feed per kg weight gain were better in broilers chicken fed CRC based-diets. The result of the experiment showed that camel rumen content can replace maize and groundnut cake up to 15% level without deleterious effect on the roductive performance of broiler chicks.However, at finisher stage up to20%dietarymaize and groundnut cake could be replaced with CRC without adverse effect on the growth performance, carcass parameters, digestibility and economics of production.