Mustard cake a substitute for groundnut cake in egg-type and meat-type chick diets

Abstract

SummaryExperiments were made to assess the nutritive value of expeller-proeessed mustard cake (MS) for egg-type and meat-type chicks. Eight samples of MS on average contained 37·2% crude protein, 27·5% true protein, 12·6% available carbohydrate and 2·09 % tannins. The average metabolizable energy content (ME) of eight samples of MS for egg-type and meat-type chicks were 2350 and 2300 kcal/kg respectively. MS in the diet replacing groundnut cake (GN) which formed 30–32 % of the control diets was found to have no effect on growth rate of the chicks of either breed although there was thyroid enlargement. MS was also found not to affect the body composition of the chicks.