Blend of oil palm slurry and rice bran as feed ingredient for broiler chickens

A 6-week feeding trial was conducted to assess the effect of four types of processed oil palm slurry (OPS) using rice bran (RTB) as an absorbent, here after referred to as RIBROPS, to partially replace maize on the growth perf ormance of broiler chicks. Six hundred 14-day-old commercial broiler chicks were randomly allocated to one of the five dietary treatments. The dietary treatments consisted of the control diet, which contained maize as the mai n energy source, and four other diets each of which contained a fixed amoun t of 100 g of one of the four types of RIBROPS kg(-1). The experimental die ts were formulated to be both isoproteic and isoenergetic. Feed and water w ere provided ad libitum for a period of 6 weeks. The dietary treatments did not have significant impact on feed intake (r=-0 .48), body weight gain (r=0.42) and feed conversion efficiency (r=-0.40). C arcass yields were similar. There were no health-related problems attributa ble to the dietary treatments. Mortality was unaffected by the dietary trea tments. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.