Metabolic Trial
At the 8th
week broilers of similar weights from each dietary treatment were separately housed in metabolic cages.
Equal quantity of 75g feed was served at 8.00am daily to each bird. The birds were routinely managed. Droppings
were collected and weighed daily separated from feed and other extraneous materials then oven dried at 85°C for
48 hours. Weights of wet and oven dried droppings were recorded to calculate the dry matter. The dried samples
were kept for chemical analysis according to AOAC [16].
Carcass Analysis
At the completion of the digestibility study two broilers with representative weights were selected from each
replicate for carcass analysis. Birds were killed, eviscerated and viscera organs of interest were harvested weighed
using the sensitive digital balance (PGW453i-model) and expressed as percentages of the carcass weight.
Chemical Analysis
The proximate composition of the test ingredients, experimental diets and droppings were estimated by the
methods of AOAC [16] while the gross energy values of the diets were determined using the bomb calorimeter