Abstract

Heaps of rice husk waste is currently increasing around rice mills in Nigeria. Production cost for broilers has risen tremendously due to high cost of feed ingredients, one of which is Brewer’s Dried Grain (BDG). Rice husk has been identified as a potential feed stuff and can replace BDG in broiler production. The research determined the effect of substituting BDG with bio-fermented rice husk meal on the blood profiles and nutrient retention of the broilers. Four treatment diets were formulated. T1 (control) contained 15% BDG while in T2, T3 and T4 bio-fermented rice husk meal replaced BDG at 33.33%, 66.67% and 100% to be 5%, 10% and 15% respectively. The diets were assigned to 120 broilers of 28 days old in a complete randomized design of 10 broilers replicated 3 times. The broilers were reared for 28 days after which blood samples were collected. Nutrient retention of the diets was also analyzed. There was a significant (P < 0.05) reduction in the WBC, MCH, MCHC and serum cholesterol level of broilers on the test ingredient. Nutrient retention showed a significant (P < 0.05) increase in ash while the control and T2 were similar (P > 0.05) in crude protein. The research discovered that though there were significant results in most the hematological and biochemical parameters, but the trend of the results was not suggestive that the difference was due to diet. It was concluded that bio-fermented rice husk meal may not have a negative effect on the blood profile of finisher broilers.

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