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Abstract
One hundred and eighty 4 weeks-old Anak 2000 broiler finisher birds were utilized in a 28-day experiment to determine the effect of replacing maize with sugarcane scrapping meal (SCSM) on their growth performance indices and economics of production. Five experimental diets T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 were compounded to be isonitrogenous (20% crude protein) and isocaloric (2800Kcal/Kg ME) with varying levels of sugarcane scrapping meal (SCM) inclusion. Having obtained the proximate composition of the test ingredient (sugarcane scrapping meal), the experimental diets were formulated such that the test ingredient replaced maize at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% levels for treatments 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively such that T1 serves as the control. The birds were randomly allocated to the 5 dietary treatments at the rate of 36 birds per treatment and replicated four times having 9 birds each. All experimental birds were given weighed amount of feed and water was provided ad libitum. The result indicated that final weight and intake of feed were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by the different levels of inclusion of SCSM in the diets. Feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio were improved (P>0.05) in birds fed diets T2 (5.02±0.64 and 0.88±0.11) T3 (5.47±0.25 and 0.80±0.04), T4 (5.60±0.46 and 0.83±0.14) and T5 (5.60±0.46 and 0.78±0.12), respectively compared to those in the control T1 (3.87±0.36 and 1.13±0.10) respectively. Similarly, body weight gain increased (P>0.05) in birds fed the control diets (555±0.10g) than the other diets (540±0.0 vs. 543±0.02 vs. 542±0.0 and 547±0.0 g) while cost of feed consumed and cost of feed per weight gain were better in diet T1 (308.53±49 N/kg) than the rest of the diets and dietT2 (95.21±9.46 N/kg) than the other diets, respectively. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in the cost of production, revenue generated and gross margin due to the replacement of SCSM with maize in the diets. From this study, SCSM can replace maize in poultry diets up 100% owing to the fact that the birds performed uniformly between treatments2 and 5 without any deleterious effect
Keywords: Sugarcane scrapping meal, broiler finisher birds, economics analysis of production and growth performance.,