by- Dr. Rk singh, jamshedpur
• Despite aesthetic objections, dried poultry excreta have been successfully used for ruminants.
• Poultry manures vary considerably in composition, depending upon their origins. That from cage layers has a lower fibre content than broiler litter, which has a base of the groundnut hulls, rice husk, or saw dust used as bedding.
• Both the types of manures have high ash content, particularly that of layers, usually about 280 g /kg DM.
• Digestilibilty is low and the ME value is 7.5 MJ/kg DM. Protein content vary from 250 350 g/kg DM with a digestibility of 0.65. Most of the nitrogen (600 g/kg) is present as non-protein compounds, mostly urates, which must first be converted into urea and then ammonia in order to be utilised by the animal.
• The conversion of urea is usually a slow process and wastage and the danger of toxicity are both less than with foods containing urea itself.
• Layer wastes are excellent sources of Calcium (about 65 g/kg DM) but the ratio of calcium to phosphorus is rather wide at 3:1; broiler litters have less calcium with ratios closer to 1:1.
• Dietary inclusion rates of up to 250 kg /tons have been used for dairy cows and up to 400 kg/t for fattening cattle and have supported very acceptible levels of performance. Thus dairy cows given 110 kg per tonne of diet to replace half of the soya bean meal of a control diet yielded 20 kg milk, the same as the control, but gained only 0.58 kg/day compared with 0.95 kg/day for the controls.
• With fattening steers, concentrate diets containing wastes have supported gains of the order of 1 kg/day, but it has been estimated that for each inclusion of 100 kg excreta per tonne of diet, liveweight gains are reduced by about 40 g/ kg.
• One of the major constraints in the use of poultry wastes in animal diets has been the fear of health hazards arising from the presence of pathogens such as Salmonella and the presence of pesticide and drug residues.
• The heat treatment involved in drying and the ensiling procedures used for storing the materials appear to offer satisfactory control of pathogens, and pesticides have not proved to be a problem.
• Drug residues may be a hazard but this can be overcome by having a withdrawl period of three weeks before slaughter.
• The best method of treating poultry wastes for use as animal foods is by sun drying, ensiling either alone, or with forages have all proved satisfactory.
