Maxigrain® supplemented corn cob meal (CCM) utilization by Arbor acre chicks: performance and carcass characteristics at 0-4 weeks

Abstract

In an experiment to investigate the effect of feeding corn cob meal (CCM) supplemented with Maxigrain®, one hundred and forty-four day-old Arbor acre chicks were fed 6 treatment diets for 28 days, and growth performance indices were assessed. There were 8 bird randomly allotted to each replicate and 3 replicates per treatment diet, in a 3×2 factorial completely randomized experimental design. The levels of CCM inclusion were 0, 25 and 50% and 2 levels of enzyme supplementation, 0g/kg and 0.1g/kg diet. Diet 1, 2 and 3 wer without enzyme while diets 4, 5 and 6 were supplemented with the enzyme cocktail,Maxigrain®. Feed and clean water were administered ad libitum, feed intake (FI) and body weight gain (BWG) were assessed for the experimental period. Analyzed composition of diets had a dry matter range of 90.65 - 92.15%; metabolizable energy, 2849.42 to 2952.46 kcal/kg; crude protein 17.2 - 18.55%; a crude fibre range of 5.1 – 5.35% and ether extract of between 5.35 – 7.2%. Part replacement of maize with CCM significantly decreased FI from 1.01kg/replicate/day to 0.83 kg /replicate/day and also decreased dressed percent from 74.91  71.77% significantly (p<0.05). Birds fed 25% CCM supplemented with Maxigrai performed comparably to birds fed the control diets, 25% CCM with Maxigrain is therefore recommended.