Nutritional Value of Cattle Rumen Epithelial Scrapings Meal (CRESM) for Broiler Chicken.

An eight weeks study was conducted to study the effects of substituting cattle rumen epithelial scrapings meal (CRESM) for fish meal in broiler diet to reduce feed cost and recycle this waste. Two hundred and fifty Ross strain day-old broiler chicks were divided into five groups of fifty birds and the groups allotted to five diets in which CRESM replaced 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% fish meal in the control diet at starter and finisher phase in a completely randomize design. Each experiment was replicated five times. Data collected were feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio, nutrient utilization, mortality and carcass characteristics. No significant difference was observed in feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and mortality at the starter phase. Feed cost and feed cost/kilogram weight gain decreased with increase level of CRESM. At the finisher phase, daily weight gain of the birds that received control diet (39.3g) and those that had 25% (39.1g) and 50% (38.9g) fish meal in their diets replaced were similar but were higher than those fed 75% (36.6g) and 100% (37.0g). Poor feed utilization was observed at 75% and 100% substitution level. Feed cost/kilogram weight gain decreased at 25% and 50% substitution level but dry matter and crude protein utilization were similar to that of the control. Organ weights and carcass yield were unaffected. The study suggests that CRESM can replace 100% and 50% fish meal in broiler starter and finisher diets respectively. Key words: Carcass characteristics, Feed conversion ratio, Feed intake, Nutrient utilization, Organ weight, weight gain