Influence of Dietary Fermented Corn-Cob on the Performance of Broilers

摘要

Two experiments were designed to investigate the effect of fermentation of corncob on the performance and nutrient retention of broilers. In Trial 1, day-old broiler chicks were fed either a maize-based control diet or diets containing unfermented Corncob (CC), CC fermented for 5, 10, 15 and 20 days. CC was used to quantitatively replace maize at 10% of total diet. The diets were fed during a 5-week period. In Trial 2, five-week old broilers were fed finisher rations containing corncobs fermented for 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 days in replacement for maize over a 4-week period. Inclusion of corncob irrespective of duration of fermentation did not affect feed intake (p>0.05) at both the starter and finisher stages. Weight gain, feed: Gain ratio and protein efficiency ratio were however significantly influenced by duration of fermentation (p< 0.05). The longer the duration of fermentation, the better the performance of the birds on such diets. Nutrients? retention was also significantly influenced by duration of fermentation of corncob (p< 0.05). Birds on unfermented corncob had the least retention of dry matter, crude protein and ether extract in both trials. At 10% level of inclusion of total diet, CC fermented for 20 days gave results similar to the control diet.