Incorporating poultry litter in rabbit feed : A solid waste management strategy

Abstract EN

An investigation was carried out for recycling of poultry litter by incorporating it in animal feed to reduce the risk of polluting the environment and reduce the cost of feed.

Twenty-four 2 – 3 months old growing rabbits (Chinchilla breed) were used to evaluate the nutritive quality of poultry litter (PL).

Soy Bean Meal (SBM) in the diets was replaced with poultry litter at 0,5,10 and 15% (21.70, 48.4, and 65.2%) levels, respectively in a study that lasted twelve weeks.

The rabbits were divided into four groups and each group was assigned to one of the four dietary treatments in a Completely Randomized Block Design (CRBD).

Results obtained showed that the inclusion of poultry litter had significant (P<0.05) effects on mean weight gain, feed intake and feed efficiency.

These indices were better on 0% (control) and 5% when compared to 10% and 15% levels of inclusion.

The economics of production indicated a better performance on those fed poultry litter over the control group in all the indices vis-à-vis cost / kg feed (N), cost / kg weight gain (N) and relative cost (%) measured suggesting that poultry litter has an economic advantage over soy bean meal as protein supplement in diet formulation.

From the results obtained, poultry litter could replace up to 5% (21.70) of soy bean meal in growing rabbits diet without detrimental effects on growth performance.

This study justifies the practical possibility of using poultry litter as dietary protein source using rabbits as a model and also provides an environmentally friendly way of disposing this pollutant.