Effect of replacing maize with cassava/brewers dried yeast blend (Cassayeast) on performance of broiler chicks and feed cost in southern Nigeria

Abstract

A feeding trial using 240, day old Anak broiler chicks was conducted in which cassava meal (CM) completely replaced maize in the control diet (A) to formulate five isocaloric and iso nitrogenous diets. Dried CM blended with brewers dried yeast (BDY) formed cassayeast with 2.704 parts of CM to 1 part of BDY). The (Cassayeast) CM and BDY blend in the dietary treatments, (B,C,D and E) were 30 CM + 11.1% BDY, 35 CM + 12.94% BDY, 40 CM + 14.79% BDY, and 45 CM + 16.64% BDY, respectively, and these treatments had no maize. Dietary treatment A, containing maize, which served as the control had no cassayeast inclusion, thus demonstrating the total replacement of maize by cassayeast in the other dietary treatments. Results showed that significant of maize difference (P<0.5) were observed in the control and at in one cassayeast treatment in feed intake (4.43 as against 4.22kg), body weight (1.94 as against 1.65kg), efficiency of feed utilization (feed: gain ratio 2.19 as against 2.51; gain: feed ratio 0.49 as against 0.43), respectively. However, gizzard weights were not significant. Economic analysis showed that the cost of producing a bird with the maize based diet (A) was significantly (P<0.05) higher than that with the cassayeast diets but there was not difference among the cassayeast diets (B-E). The maize based diet was most expensive (N 29.68 per kg diet) while diet C was the cheapest (N 25.57 per kg). The study demonstrated that the use of cassayeast has a place in the broiler industry, thus indicating that with proper protein balancing, cassava can completely replace maize in broiler diets.
Keywords: Cassava, brewers dried yeast, broiler chicks, feed cost.