ABSTRACT

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effect ofreplacing dietary maize offal with dry poultry manure on the performance ofWest African Dwarf(WAD) goats. Sixteen West African Dwarf(WAD) goats ofmixed sexes ( 8 males and 8 females) aged about 8 months with an average live weights of 6.5 kg were used; and quarantined for 30 days. Maize offal was included in the diets at 30, 20, 10 and 0 %, while DPM was added at 0, 10, 20 and 30 %, which replaced 0, 33.3, 66.7 and 100 % ofthe maize offal, randomly assigned to the four diets in a complete randomized design (CRD) with four goats per diet; each group was replicated four times with one goat per replicate. Clean water and the diets were measured and given twice a day. The daily feed intake of the animals fed diets 3 and 4 ( 47.50 g and 50.8 g ) were similar (p >0.05), and significantly (p <0.05) higher than those goats fed diet 1(36.25 g). However, daily weight gain ofthe animals fed diet 2 (45.83 g) was statistically similar to that ofthe goats on diet 3 (47.50 g) (p >0.05) and significantly (p <0.05) superior to that ofgoats on diet 1 (16.14 ). Litter condition was found non-significant (p >0.05) among the groups ( 3.55, 3.60, 3.39 and respectively). Generally, the economics ofproduction ofthe goats revealed significant ( p <0.05 ), while the cut - up carcasses showed great improvement including the dress - up X 3.59). The experiment lasted 120 days. The result ofthe study revealed an improve in the cost offeed / kg ( p< 0.05 ) from diets 1 to 4 (N23.32, N21.72, N20.12 and N 18.52, i 1significantly (p <0.05) higher than that on diet 1 (582.63 g). Daily weight gain ofthe respectively. The diets were designated 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. percentage as revealed in the study. Though, there was non -significant noted on the cut - up carcasses ofthe goats fed dry poultry manure. The feed conversion ratio, protein related in this study. The results ofthis study showed a general improvement on the economic benefits and carcass characteristics ofWAD goats by replacing maize offal with poultry manure in WAD goat diets and that dry poultry manure can totally replace maize offal in diets of WAD goats.