Performance, carcass and organ characteristics of finisher broiler chickens fed graded levels of Sodium hydroxide treated rice threshing waste meal

Abstract

Low availability of conventional feed ingredients has resulted to soaring cost of chicken necessitating exploration on harnessing agro waste products in poultry feeding.  This study therefore, investigated the effect of diets containing 2%NaOH treated Rice Threshing Waste (TRTW) on the performance, carcass and organ characteristics of finisher broilers. The TRTW was used to formulate four treatment diets. The control (B₁) contained no TRTW while B₂, B₃ and B₄ contained TRTW at 2.5%, 5%, and 7.5% inclusion rates respectively. The diets were assigned to 120 broilers of 28 days post hatch in a completely randomized design of 4 treatment groups which were replicated 3 times. The birds were fed ad-libitum and managed under deep litter system for 21days. The result of the proximate composition of the Rice Threshing Waste (RTW) before and after the treatment showed that the treatment caused a reduction in crude protein and crude fibre. Performance of the birds showed no significant difference (P>0.05) for weight gain but feed intake was higher (P<0.05) for B₃ and B₄. Also, carcass and organ parameters had no significant effect except in back in which control had a higher value. Inclusion of TRTW at up to 7.5% in broilers diet therefore, caused no deleterious effect on the broiler chickens.