EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OF FEEDING BROILER CHICKENS VARYING LEVELS OF MAIWA MILLET AND SORGHUM AS DIETARY ENERGY SOURCE

Abstract

The study was carried out to evaluate the effects of feeding broiler chickens varying amount of Maiwa millet and sorghum as dietary energy sources. The experiment utilized 250 broiler chickens and conducted in two different phases (starter and finisher) for eight (8) weeks. Five experimental diets for both starter and finisher phases were formulated with varying inclusion level of 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%. The broiler chickens were randomly weighed and allotted to five (5) treatment groups of 50 chickens each. Each treatment was replicated five time with 10 birds per replicate and laid out in a completely randomized design (CRD). The result of the experiment shows that, daily feed intake values ((51.60-55.01g; 119.70-121.88g; 81.09-83.33g) and the daily weight gain values (28.80-30.97g; 39.92-43.55g; 31.20-33.99g) indicated a non-significant (P≤0.01) differences among the treatments in the two (2) phases of the experiments. Moreover, the dietary treatments had no effect on the carcass and visceral organ parameters of broiler chickens, with the exception of caecal weight and small intestine length, which differed significantly (P≤0.01) with values ranging from 0.40 - 0.66% and 160.25 - 190.66cm respectively. Based on the research findings, the study concludes that broiler chickens can be fed maiwa millet and sorghum along with other ingredients as nutritional energy sources without any effect on their growth and development.