Effect of rate of inclusion of fishmeal prepared by cooking and sun drying of fish offal on feed intake and nutrient retention of growing Rhode Island Red chicks

Abstract

AJOL Abstract: Effect of cooked and sun dried fish offal on intake and nutrient retention of growing Rhode Island Red (RIR) chicks in southern Ethiopia was evaluated. Unsexed day old RIR chicks were uniformly brooded, vaccinated against Gumboro and Newcastle diseases. At the age of 14 days, 10 chicks were assigned to each of the 5 replicates of the 6 dietary groups, fed for 11 weeks and daily group feed intakes were recorded. The control diet (T1) consisted of Maize (34.1%), wheat short+bran (21.0%), limestone (1.20%), salt (0.5%), premix (0.1%), lysine (0.05%), methioinine (0.05%), roasted soybean (27.0%) and noug cake (16.0%); the rest of the diets contained all ingredients in the control plus fishmeal at rates of 3.32% (T2), 6.64% (T3), 9.96% (T4), 13.28% (T5), and 16.6% (T6) of the diet and had 19.76, 18.89, 19.82, 18.44, 18.96 and 19.20% cp, respectively. At the beginning of the feeding trial, 13 chicks representing initial body weight of those in the trial were stunned by dislocation of the neck. At the end, one male and one female chick from each of the 3 replicates of each of the 6 treatment groups were systematically selected, tagged, fasted for 12 hours, weighed, and stunned by dislocation of the neck. All carcasses were kept intact in deep freezer at -20°C and then cut into small pieces in freezing condition, minced and dried in an oven at 65°C for 80 hours, ground, homogenized and chemically analyzed. Chicks fed T1 had significantly (p; the rest of the diets contained all ingredients in the control plus fishmeal at rates of 3.32% (T2), 6.64% (T3), 9.96% (T4), 13.28% (T5), and 16.6% (T6) of the diet and had 19.76, 18.89, 19.82, 18.44, 18.96 and 19.20% cp, respectively. At the beginning of the feeding trial, 13 chicks representing initial body weight of those in the trial were stunned by dislocation of the neck. At the end, one male and one female chick from each of the 3 replicates of each of the 6 treatment groups were systematically selected, tagged, fasted for 12 hours, weighed, and stunned by dislocation of the neck. All carcasses were kept intact in deep freezer at -20°C and then cut into small pieces in freezing condition, minced and dried in an oven at 65°C for 80 hours, ground, homogenized and chemically analyzed. Chicks fed T1 had significantly (p