Abstract
The effect of substituting animal protein and vitamin mineral source with dried manure silage in broiler feeds was studied in a trial conducted on 80, 7-day-old broiler chicks. The control group was fed a standard broiler starter ration while 3 test diets contained 20% manure silage, replacing fish meal, blood meal and vita-min-mineral premix, respectively. Non-significant differences among treatments were observed in respect of weight gain, feed consumption, feed efficiency and cost of production. The results indicated that manure silage protein was comparable to animal protein sources and its vitamin and mineral content was sufficient to support optimum growth of birds in the absence of synthetic vitamin-mineral supplement.
INTRODUCTION MATERIALS AND METHODS
Traditional methods of disposing cattle manure as organic fertilizer are now consid-ered wastage of energy. Now cattle manure is considered as one of the cheaper sources of nutrients in animal feeds (Muller, 1974). Considerable work has been conducted on the use of cattle manure in poultry feed as protein and energy source (Palafox and Rosenberg, 1961; Menear and Smith, 1973; Sial et al., 1989), while it has also been con-sidered as a good source of vitamin and minerals in poultry rations. When cattle manure is ensiled under anaerobic conditions, the addition of urea and molasses tremendously accelerate mi-crobial growth and thus increase its protein content (Hardy et al., 1983). This biomass can be used in poultry rations as protein substitute (Ergul and Vogt, 1983; Rasool a al, 1989). This study was conducted to assess the nutritive value of manure silage as a substi-tute of animal protein sources viz, fish and blood meal and vitamin-mineral premix in broiler rations,
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The manure silage was prepared by fermenting the cattle manure collected from lactating cows. The manure (60%) was thoroughly mixed with cane molasses (38%) and urea (fertilizer grade, 2%) and then en-siled under anaerobic conditions for three weeks. Then the sludge was removed, sun dried and ground to be incorporated in the experimental rations. A representative sam-ple of the ground biomass was analysed to determine its chemical composition (A.O.A.C., .1984) which is given in Table 1.
Table 1. Chemical composition of manure silage on dry matter basis Particulars True protein 16.00 Crude fibre 9.50 Ether extract 0.88 Nitrogen free extract 48.70 Total ash 12.70 Inorganic Ca 1.48 Inorganic P 0.35 Gross energy (Kcal/kg) 3000
