EFFECT OF REPLACING CORN WITH THREE FIBRE SOURCES ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS QUALITY OF BROILER CHICKEN.

The experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of replacing corn with three dietary fibre sources on the growth performance and carcass quality of broiler chicken. One hundred and forty four oneday old broiler chickens were used for the experiment. The birds were brooded for two weeks on commercial starter diet after which they were subjected to four experimental diets or treatments. The birds were randomly distributed into four treatments with three replicates, each replicate consisting of 12 birds. All birds in each treatment were fed with different diet and weighed at the end of every week. The experimental design used was a completely randomized design. The experimental treatments were designated as treatment T1, T2, T3, T4 while T1 was tagged as a control diet without any source of dietary fibre, T2 as a diet with wheat bran as a source of dietary fibre, T3 as a diet with rice bran as a source of dietary fibre, T4 as a diet with brewers dried grain (BDG) as a source of dietary fibre. There was no significant (p>0.05) difference in the initial weight of the birds across the treatments, but there was a significant (p<0.05) difference in the final weight and body weight gain of the birds where T2 had the highest body weight gain and T3 has the lowest body weight gain. This trend was also observed in the carcass. Based on the result of this experiment wheat bran can be used as a source of dietary fibre for better growth performance of broiler chicken at a low inclusion level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]