Utilization of hatchery waste meal in cassava products based broiler finisher diets

The trial reported herein investigated the use of hatchery waste meal as a replacement for fish meal in a cassava products-based broiler finisher diet. One hundred and twenty five (125) four-week old broilers were randomly allotted to five iso-energetic and iso-nitrogenous experimental diets such that each dietary treatment was replicated five times with five birds /replicate. All the diets contained whole cassava root meal (WCRM) as source of energy with soybean meal (SBM) and cassava leaf meal (CLM) (plant protein sources) supplying 50% and 25% of the total dietary protein respectively. The experimental treatment consists of fishmeal (FM) and hatchery waste meal (HWM) as animal protein sources supplying the remaining 25% of the total dietary protein. Additionally, In Dier 1 (FM and HWM supplied 100.0 and 0% of dietary animal protein respectively), diet 2 (FM and HWM supplied 75.00 and 25.00% of dietary animal protein respectively), diet 3 (FM and HWM supplied 50.00 and 50.00% of dietary animal protein respectively), diet 4 (FM and HWM supplied 25.00% and 75.00% of dietary animal protein respectively) while in diet 5 (FM and HWM supplied 0 and 100.00% of dietary animal protein respectively).. The diets were fed over a five-week period. Average daily feed intake was not significantly affected by dietary treatments, weight gain and feed conversion ratio were however significantly affected (P< 0.05) by dietary treatment. Protein retention was significantly influenced (P<0.05) by dietary treatments. Blood biochemical indices showed that hatchery waste meal was well utilized by finishing broilers. All hatchery waste meal based diets compared very favorably with the control with Diet 3 appearing as the best with respect to performance indices and protein retention. In conclusion, the results of this experiment indicated that hatchery waste meal holds promise as a replacement for fishmeal in cassava root-cassava leaf-based diers.