ABSTRACT

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of substituting maize with tigernut. Five broiler finisher diets comprising control diet which maize was replaced with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100°/o of tiger nut was formulated and fed to the birds over a period of 7 weeks (wk I — wk 7). One hundred and twenty (120) broiler chicks (Anak) were randomly allocated to five treatment diet in a Completely Randomized design. Each of the treatments had 24 birds, with three replicates in each of the treatments with total of eight (8) birds per replicates. Treatment one (I) which has no tiger nut served as the control. The parameters measured were, iced intake, body weight changes, and economics of production. Duncan's multiple range test were used to analyze treatment means found to be statistically significant (p<O.O5 ). The results showed that productive performance of the birds fed with diet 2 gives a significantly higher body weight gain (940. 16g) compared to others. While those fed with diet 3 gave the least value (702.08g), Cost/kg diet () increased &om (4) 78.4() to 95.05 as the tiger nut substitution for maize increased from 0-100%. Revenue was significantly highest for the birds fed with diet 2 compared to others. The output of the experiment failed to justify the financial efficiency of substituting maize with tiger nut .Even the general performance of the birds makes the source and the breed of the broiler doubtful.