Abstract 141

Longe,-OG; Ogedegbe,-NEE

Dep. Animal Science, Univ. Ibadan, Nigeria.

British-Poultry-Science. 1989, 30: 1, 193-196; 8 ref.

Diets in which maize and palm kernel meals were major ingredients and with metabolizable energy (ME) contents varied by the inclusion of graded amounts of maize cobs (50 to 200 g/kg diet) were given to growing pullets from 9 to 21 weeks old. Apparent ME decreased from 11.82 to 9.79 MJ/kg diet as neutral detergent fibre increased from 182 to 330 g/kg. ME intake was significantly reduced when the maize cob content was above 100 g/kg diet. Protein intake was unaffected by treatment but apparent nitrogen retention was significantly decreased for pullets given the diet with maize cob 200 g/kg. Chickens given diets including maize cobs 50 and 100 g/kg diet attained sexual maturity earlier than those given diets without maize cobs.