ABSTACT

A 28 - day feeding trial involving seventy - two (72) four week old local turkey birds was conducted to evaluate the growth performance and economic characteristics of turkey poults fed diets containing varying levels oftoasted bambara groundnut offal at the starter phase. The poults were assigned to four dietary treatments groups of eighteen birds per treatment with six birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. The birds were fed diets containing varying levels of toasted bambara groundnut offal at 0%, 7.5%, 15.0% and 22.5% designated as diets, Ti. T2, T3 and T4, respectively. Diet Ti (0%) was the control diet. The birds were weighed at the beginning ofthe experiment and weekly thereafter. Experimental diets and water were offered ad libitum. The parameters such as growth performance and economics production characteristics were assessed at the end ofthe experiment. The result ofthe experiment showed that toasted bambara groundnut offal contained crude protein of 18.52%, crude fibre, 4.74% and ether extract value of4.47%. The final live weight, total weight gain, average daily gain and revenue of birds fed diets 1,3 and 4 were significantly higher (P<0.05) than birds fed diet 2. Birds fed diets Ti, T3 and T4 had higher (p><0.05) final live body weights (949.69g, 966.27g, and 935.11) respectively than birds fed diets T2 (821.08g). Birds fed diets Ti (752.02g), T3(772.52g) and dietT4 (742.77g) had higher (p><0.05) total weight gain than birds fed diet T2 (626.25g). The result on revenue generated differed significantly (p><0.05) among treatment groups, Revenue generated from turkeys fed diet T3 (N 773.02) diet T4 (N 748.08) and diet Ti (N 759.75) were higher (p><0.05) than the revenue generated from turkeys fed diet T2 (N 656.86). However, the revenue generated from turkeys fed diets 1,3 and 4 were similar (p>0.05). The birds fed the treatment diets did not differ (p>0.05) in average daily feed intake, feed conversion ratio, cost/kg weight gain and gross margin. It could be concluded that toasted bambara groundnut offal could be incorporated in starter turkey diet up to 22.5% dietary level without adversely affecting growth performance and economics of production characteristics ofstarter turkey. However, for optimum performance, 15.0 dietary level inclusion is advocated for starter turkeys.