ABSTRACT

A 35-days feeding trial involving sixty (60) three weeks old starter turkey birds was conducted to evaluate the growth performance and economic characteristics of turkey poults fed diets containing varying levels of toasted Bambara groundnut offal (TBGO) at the starter phase. The poults were assigned to five dietary treatment groups of twelve birds per treatment with four birds per replicate in a Completely Randomized Design. The birds were fed diet containing varying levels of TBGO at 0%, 7.5%, 15.0%, 22.5% and 30% designated as diets Ti, T2, T3, T4 and T5, respectively. Diet Ti (0%) was the control diet. The birds were weighed at the beginning of the experiment and weekly thereafter. Experimental diets and water were offered ad-libitum. The result of the experiment shows that birds fed diet T5 containing 30.0% level of TBGO had significantly (P<0.05) lower average daily feed intake (66.53g), lower cost of production (N573.76), cost of feed consumed (N573.79) and lower cost of a kilogram of feed (N246.97) than birds fed the other diets. Final live weight, total weight gain, average daily weight gain, feed conversion ratio, cost per kilogram weight gain, revenue and gross margin did not differ (P>0.05) among treatment groups. However, turkeys fed diet T2 containing 7.5% TBGO had non-significantly (P>0.05) heavier final weight (978.38g), better feed conversion ratio (3.19), improved average daily weight gain (21 .90g), lower cost! kilogram weight gain (N794. 18), better returns in revenue (Ni467.0) and gross margin (N876.44) than turkeys fed the other treatment diets. The result of this study suggests that TBGO could be incorporated at 7.5% level for optimum performance and up to 30.0% level in starter turkey ration without adversely affecting growth performance and economic characteristics of starter turkey poults.