GROWTH AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER CHICKENS FED MAIZE, SORGHUM, MILLET AND THEIR COMBINATIONS IN THE SEMI ARID ZONE OF NIGERIA

ABSTRACT A study was carried out to investigate the effect of dietary replacement of maize with soghum and millet on the growth performance and carcass measurements of broilers chickens in a forty two (42) day feeding trial. Two hundred and seventy (270) unsexed broiler chicks weighing averagely 366.13 g were randomly allotted to six (6) experimental diets. The design of the experiment was Randomized Complete Block Design consisting of 45 birds replicated three (3) times with 15 birds per replicate. The control (T1) contained 100% maize, T2 (100% Sorghum), T3 (100% millet), T4 (50% maize and 50% sorghum), T5 (50% maize and 50% millet) and T6 (50% sorghum and 50% millet). The maize sorghum and millet served as the major energy source for the broilers. The result shows that there were significant differences in the final weight and overall weight gain. Treatment 4 (50% maize and 50% sorghum) recorded the highest final liveweight (2472.10 g) and the lowest (2251.80 g) was observed in treatment 3 (100% millet). The same trend was observed for overall weight gain. There were no significant (P>0.05) differences in daily feed intake, daily weight gain and feed conversion ratio among all the treatment groups. For carcass measurements, dressing percentage was highest (81.25%) in treatment 2 (100% sorghum) although they were not different from treatment 1 (100% maize) and 6 (50% sorghum and 50% millet). There were no significant (P>0.05) differences among treatments for breast and thigh weights. These results suggest that maize could be replaced by low tannin sorghum and millet in the diets of broilers without adverse effect on their performance