NUTRIENT DIGESTIBILITY AND PRODUCTION PERFORMANCE OF NATIVE CHICKEN FED DIET COMPOSED OF FERMENTED RICE BRAN

Abstract

When a high amount of rice bran used in the diet results a low-nutritive diet. This is a common problem in poultry ration, especially for native chicken in Indonesia, because of its low protein, high fiber and anti-nutritive contents. Fermentation using rumen content/liquid of cattle as a starter, is a simple method that can be applied to increase quality of rice bran and it is possibly easy to be adopted by the farmer. Two hundred birds of one-month old of native chicken (initial body weight was 197 ± 17 g) were divided into S groups of treatment (4 replications and 10 birds each) based on the experimental diet that were provided in the present study. Compositions of experimental diet were as follows: (T1). Raw rice bran (40%). yellow corn (40%) and concentrate (20%). (Ti.). Fermented rice bran (FRB, 40%), yellow corn (40%) and concentrate (20%). (Tr.). Diet T, + 0.075 % thyroid gland powder (TGP). (T2). FRB (60%), yellow corn (20%) and concentrate (20%). (Ts). Diet 14 + 0.075%TGP. The following parameters namely, digestibility of protein and crude fiber, body weight gain, carcass weight and concentration of blood cholesterol were statistically analyzed based on ana/ysis of variance in Icompletely randomized design, and it was continued to Duncan for significance test. Crude protein and fiber digestibility body weight gain, and carcass weight were significantly increased by feeding 40% of FRB supplemented with (T3) or without (T2) TGP. However, feeding 40% of FRB added with TGP (T3) and 60% oC FRB with (T3) or without (T2) addition of TOP were found to decrease concentration of blood cholesterol as compared to that of Ti. Key words: Native chicken, Rice bran, Thyroid hormone, Growth, Digestibility, Cholesterol. INTRODUCTION Low development and production performance of Indonesian native chicken are caused by many factors such as simple breeding management and provided low nutritive diet. Nutritive value of diet is closely related to its composition. The higher amount of rice bran used in the diet results the lower nutritive content. At the village farm level, rice bran is usually used in a large amount (Tangendjaja, 1988). Low nutrients digestibility of rice bran due to its low protein, high crude fiber contents and the presence of anti-nutiritive factor resulted low production performance in poultry. Fermentation, using Aspergillus sp., was able to improve quality of rice bran through the increase in protein, Ca and P availability, and the decrease in cellulose content. (Swandyastuti et a14. 1996, and Wahyuni et at, 1997). Feeding fermented rice bran combined with thyroid gland powder, as a source of thyroid hormone, is expected to improve growth. The action and function of thyroid hormone will be optimal when the substrates (protein and energy) are available (Suthama et al., 1991 and Suthama, 1991). In the present study, availability of substrates (nutrients) derived from fermented rice bran and supported by the role of thyroid hormone was observed in growing native chicken. Faculty of Animal Science, Diponegoro University, Campus Tcwbalang, Semarang 50276, Central Java, Indonesia.