Tannia (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) Cocoyam As Dietary Substitute For Maize in Broiler Chicken.

The effects of feeding varying levels of tannia Cocoyam Meals (CCYM) as substitutes for maize were evaluated on 96, four week-old broiler chicken. The diets included raw sundried and boiled sundried tannia. Each form replaced maize at 0, 25, 50 and 100% level. The differences in weight gain, feed intake and feed conservation ratio were not significant (P> 0.05) up to 50% substitution level for both cocoyam diets . The control only differed from cocoyam diets at 100% substitution indicating that raw sundried and boiled tannia CCYM has good potentials in feeding value up to 50% inclusion levels. Feed cost and cost of daily feed intake significantly decrease (P<0.05) with increase in the level of CCYM inclusion in boiled and raw sundried tannia respectively. The level of anti-nutritional factors (phytate, oxalate, tannin and saponin) differed significantly (P< 0.01) between the raw sundried tannia (1.29, 33.32, 1.52, 6.40) and boiled tannia (0.15, 21.70, 0.14, 4.30). Thus, much better performance observed on groups fed diets with boiled cocoyam. Possibly due to heat treatment effects which destroyed the anti-nutritional factors. Therefore, with proper processing CCYM could effectively replaced maize at 50% inclusion level in finishing diets of broilers.