Effect of substituting maize with biscuit waste meal on the growth performance, carcass traits, relative organ weight and cost benefit of broiler chickens

A feeding trial was conducted for a duration of eight weeks to assess the effect of substituting maize with biscuit waste meal (BWM) on the performance of 144 day old Anak 2000 broiler chickens. Four experimental broiler starter and finisher diets were formulated with diet 1 as the control. Diets 1, 2, 3 and 4 were formulated to contain BWM at 0, 25, 50 and 75 % replacement for maize. Chicks were randomly assigned to the four treatment diets (1, 2, 3 and 4) in a completely randomized design (CRD) and each treatment group contained three replicates with twelve chickens per replicate. Results on the growth performance revealed that average live weight, daily feed intake, daily weight, protein efficiency ratio and feed conversion ratio were significantly (p<0.05) better in birds fed 50 % BWM than those fed other dietary treatments. Carcass traits such as back and breast muscles as well as the relative weights of gizzard and kidney weight were significantly (p<0.05) influenced by the dietary treatments. Cost of feed/kg weight gain and net profit were highest among birds fed 50 % BWM and least in 75 % BWM based diet. The results suggest that BWM can replace maize up to 50% inclusion level in broiler diet for optimum performance and good economic returns.Keywords: Biscuit waste meal, Broilers, Performance, Cost benefi