EFFECT OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF TARO (Colocasia esculenta) TUBER MEAL SUBSTITUTION FOR MAIZE ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER CHICKEN

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of substituting maize with different levels of taro tuber meal (TTM) on feed intake, weight change, feed conversion ratio, mortality percentage, carcass characteristics and partial budget analysis of broiler birds. Four experimental diets were formulated with T1 (control) containing 0% TTM while diets T2, T3 and T4 contained (TTM) each at 20%, 40% and 60% replacement levels respectively. Two hundred sixteen unsexed blood Cobb 500 broiler chicks with initial weight of 41.30±1.30 (mean± SD) grams were randomly distributed to four treatments each with three replications with 18 birds per replicate in a completely randomized design during starter phase. Data on Average Daily Gain (ADG), Feed Intake (FI) and Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) were analyzed for starter (1- 21days) and finisher (22-45 days) phases separately as well as for the entire experiments period (45 days). At the end of the trial, four broilers were randomly selected from each r eplication and slaughtered for carcass parameter evaluation. The average daily feed intake during the overall experimental period was 111.9, 114.4, 116.7 and 109.7 gram per bird (SEM=0.85) for T1, T2, T3and T4, respectively, and significantly higher for T3 and lower for T4 as compared to the rest treatments (p0.05) in almost all non edible components weight. The result of experiment, could be concluded that TTM can replace maize at 40% level was acceptable since inclusion at this level did not adversely affect the production performance of broilers in terms of feed intake, growth rate, mortality percent, feed cost mitigation and feeding efficiency.