Vol. 4, Issue 9, Part C (2018)

Abstract
Eight weeks (56days) experiment was conducted to determine the growth response, carcass characteristics and selected blood parameters of broiler chickens fed sun-dried and fermented cassava Peel meal based diets. One hundred and fifty (150 day old fedan broiler chicks were assigned to five dietary treatment groups of thirty (30) birds each with three replicates of ten (10) birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. The experimental diets were formulated to contain O, 15 and 30% levels of either sundried or fermented cassava peel meal and designate T₁ (0% CPM), T₂ (15% DCPM), T₃ (15% FCPM0, T₄ (30% DCPM) and T₅ (30%FCPM), respectively. Birds fed the diets with 30% DCPM ate the most food while the birds on the diets with 30% FCPM grew the bes and had the best feed conversion ratio. Carcass characteristics and organ weights did not significantly (P>0.05) differ among dietary treatments. With the exception of serum calcium, all the haematological and serum biochemical characteristics measured were consistently significantly higher (P<0.05) in birds fed the 30% FCPM based diet, although all values were within normal range. The results showed that broilers could tolerate up to 30% of either sundried or fermented cassava peels in their diet. When the two methods of processing were compared, in terms of growth performance, the fermented cassava meal based diets clearly demonstrated superiority.