The nutritive evaluation of dried poultry excreta as a feed ingredient for broiler chickens.

Abstract

In the first of two experiments, the effect of graded levels of oven or solar dried poultry excreta (DPE) on broiler performance, carcass yield, abdominal fat pad weight and thigh meat composition was examined. Excreta were collected every 3 days from laying hens and immediately dried in an oven at 60 °C or in a solar drier at 50–70 °C and milled. The DPE was included in broiler diets at levels of 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20%. The diets were made both isoenergetic and isonitrogenous. The type and level of DPE had no significant effect on growth rate. Inclusion of DPE affected (P < 0.05) feed intake, although no difference was noted between the types of DPE. Neither inclusion nor level of DPE had a significant effect on feed efficiency. Dried poultry excreta had variable effects on abdominal fat pad size, carcass yield, and thigh meat composition. A significantly higher carcass yield was obtained in the control group than in the other groups. In the second experiment, utilization of DPE at various levels of energy and protein was evaluated. Broiler starter diets containing 10% DPE were formulated to have 11.51 MJ apparent metabolizable energy (AME) kg−1, 11.97 MJ AME kg−1 and 11.43 MJ AME kg−1, with 20.8%, 21.7% and 22.5% crude protein, respectively. Finisher diets were formulated to contain the same energy levels but with crude protein contents of 18.2%, 19.2% and 20.0%, respectively. No significant differences were observed in broiler performance, carcass yield or meat composition of broilers fed on these diets from 1 to 54 days of age. With proper adjustments of energy and protein to meet the broilers' requirements, oven or solar dried poultry waste can be safely included at levels of up to 20% of broiler diets.