PERFORMANCE, ORGAN DEVELOPMENT AND GUT MICROBIAL POPULATION OF BROILER CHICKS FED HIGH QUALITY CASSAVA PEEL (HQCP) AND YEAST (0-3 WEEKS)

ABSTRACT

A feeding trial was carried out using ninety-six (96) day old Ross 308 chicks to investigate the effect of High Quality Cassava Peel (HQCP) diet supplemented with yeast on their performance, organ measurement and ileal microbial population of broiler chicks at 0-3 weeks. The chicks were randomly allocated to four dietary treatments, Treatment 1 (0 % HQCP and 0g yeast) Treatment 2 (0 %HQCP and 0.1% yeast), Treatment 3 (15.12 % HQCP and 0% yeast), Treatment 4 (15.12% HQCP and 0.1% yeast) for 21 days in completely randomized design. Treatment 3 and 4 had HQCP levels to replace 28% of the maize in the control diet (Treatment 1). The result showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.005) on feed intake, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and organ measurement but no significant difference (p>0.005) on ileal microbial population. Bird fed T1 and T3 diet had the highest feed intake, 5.10kg and 4.27kg respectively while birds fed T1 and T4 had birds with highest body weight gain (4.97kg and 4.13kg respectively). The lowest FCR (0.84) was recorded for birds fed HQCP and 0.1g of yeast, same birds also had highest microbial population (101,000 cfu). This work showed that feeding HQCP supplemented with yeast did not have any detrimental effect on broiler chicks at 0-3 weeks and birds fed HQCP and yeast benefited from the yeast supplementation.