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

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.