NUTRITIVE AND REPLACEMENT VALUE OF HUNGRY RICE ‘ ‘ ACHA ’ ’ ( DIGITARIA EXILIS ) GRAIN FOR MAIZE GRAIN IN BROILER STARTER

The hungry rice grains (HG) were determined for nutrients and anti nutrients and evaluated for growth performance. Five dietary diets were formulated with AG replacing maize at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 %. A total of 150 7days-old broiler chicks (Abor-Acre) were randomly allotted to five treatments of 30 birds each, replicated thrice (10 birds each) in a completely randomized design for 28 days. The results of the proximate composition of hungry rice grains showed 87.00% dry matter, 12.00 % crude protein, 6.49% ether extracts, 8.57% crude fibre, 5.70% ash, 67.24% nitrogen free extracts and gross energy of 3556.06 Kcal/kg. The antinutrient values of acha grains contained 0.18 mg/100g of tannin, 1.03 mg/100g of phytate, 0.90 mg/100g of oxalate and 0.05mg/100g of cyanide. The mineral element of acha grains showed the following trend (mg/100g) K (215.82)<P (131.00)<Mg(46.02)<S(32.40)<Ca (28.17)< Fe (22.82ppm)<Na (11.30). The HG is a rich source of amino acids {methionine (5.19 g/16gN), leucine (4.26 g/16gN), valine (4.11 g/16gN), phenylalanine (2.34 g/16gN), lysine (1.96 g/16gN), isoleucine (1.39 g/16gN), arginine (1.29 g/16gN), histidine (1.35 g/16gN), glutamic acid (5.63 g/16gN), alanine (4.16g/16N) and limiting in tryptophan (0.98g/16gN). The birds on 100% HG had better (P<0.05) growth rate compared with those on 75, 50, 25 and 0%. The feed intake of birds fed 100% HG (1999.33g) was higher (P<0.05) than those fed 50% (1852.31g) but similar (P>0.05) to those on 75% (1948.26g) and 0% (1972.90g). The feed: gain of birds on 25 % (1.97) HG was superior (P<0.05) compared with those of other diets.


INTRODUCTION
High costs of broiler feeds have been recognised as one of the major factors militating against rapid development of the poultry industry in the developing countries.Mutassim et al. (2008); Ojewola and Olugbemi (2011) reported that feed is the most expensive item in poultry production between 60-80% of the total cost of production.The competition for maize use as food and feed limits the availability, hence increase in price.This has necessitated research into non-conventional energy ingredients that could replace maize without compromising broiler growth, carcass quality, efficiency and economic of production.
One important measure that can be taken to alleviate this situation is the use of alternative energy sources like sorghum, millet and acha which are produced extensively in the semi-arid areas.Issa et al. (2007) and Chukwu and Abdul-Kadir (2008) reported that cereal grains (sorghum, millet and acha) can play an important role in poultry feed in the sahelian countries.Other workers (Jideani, 1990;NRC, 1996b;Dowling et al., 2002;Travis et al., 2006 andChukwu andAbdul-Kadir, 2008)) have shown that acha grains, a similar cereal like sorghum and millet could be a suitable feedstuff in the poultry industry.

MATERIALS AND METHODS Experimental Site
The experiment was conducted at the Poultry Unit of the Teaching and Research Farm of the College of Animal Science and Production, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria.Umudike is located at latitude 5 0 29'N and Longitude 7 0 32'E in the rain forest zone of Nigeria (NRCRI, 2003).

Source of hungry rice (Digitaria exilis) Grains
The Acha (Digitaria exilis) grains were purchased from Jos Central Market, Plateau State, Nigeria.The acha grains were manually cleaned by hand picking of the chaffs.

Source of Experimental Birds and design
One hundred and fifty day-old Abor-Acre broiler chicks were purchased from Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.After one week of brooding with commercial diets, birds were equally distributed into five experimental dietary treatments of 30 chicks each, replicated three times (10 birds each) in completely randomize design (CRD)

Management of Experimental Birds
The chicks were raised on deep litter floor using wood shavings as litter material.Brooding was by means of kerosene stove as source of heat placed under a hover.Temperature of the brooding room was controlled by either reducing or increasing the flame of the stove or outright removal after reading the thermometer.On arrival at the farm, glucose was added to the birds' drinking water as anti stress.Birds were intra-ocularly vaccinated against Newcastle disease on the third day.Lasota vaccine was administered on the 14 th and 28 th day while infectious bursal disease vaccine (Gumboro) was administered on the 12 th and 19 th day.Birds were protected against coccidiosis from the 15 th -21 st days using Amprolium drug.

Feed Intake and Growth Parameters measurements
Data on body weight and feed intake were collected weekly.The birds were individually weighed weekly in each replicate.The quantity of feed fed to the birds was measured and recorded on daily basis in grammes by subtracting the left over from the quantity fed the previous day to determine the quantity consumed by each replicate.The feed intake and weight gain were used to calculate feed conversion ration and Protein efficiency Ratio

Data Analyses
All data collected were subjected to Analysis of variance (ANOVA) as outlined by Steel and Torrie (1980).Means were separated using Duncan's Multiple Range Test (Duncan, 1955).

Mineral Composition of hungry rice (Digitaria exilis) Grains
The mineral contents of acha grains are presented in Table 4.The results showed that K was the most concentrated mineral element with value of 215.82mg/100g, followed by P (131.00 mg/100g), while the least mineral was Fe (22.82ppm).

Performance of broiler starter chicks
The growth performance of experimental birds in Table 6 showed that diet T 5 had better (P<0.05)growth rate compared with those on diets T 4 , T 3 , T 2 and T 1. Similarly birds on diet T 2 grew significantly (P<0.05)better than those on diets T 4 , T 3 and T 1 .The average feed intake of birds fed T 5 (1999.33g)was higher (P<0.05)though similar (P>0.05) with those on diets T 4 (1948.26g)and T 1 (1972.90g)but significantly (P<0.05)different from those on diets T 3 (1852.31g).The feed: gain ratio of birds on T 2 (1.97) were superior (P<0.05)compared with those of other diets.The protein efficiency ratio of birds on T 2 (2.66) was better utilized compared with those on the control, 50 %, 75% and 100% hungry rice grains' diets.(1993); Ruskin et al. (1996) andNAS (1996).The lysine value (1.96) is in agreement with findings of Chukwu and Abdul-Kadir (2008) but differed from the value of 9.8 % reported by Ruskin et al. (1996).All the other amino acid values in this study are closely at par with those reported by Chukwu and Abdul-Kadir (2008).The slight variations in the values from previous researchers could be due to the agro-ecological and climatic influences, soil type, processing and analytical techniques used.
The significant (p<0.05)high feed intake and growth improvement of birds on 100% acha grains replacement for maize grains is an indication that hungry rice grain could completely served as an energy source for broiler diets without compromising the diet acceptability and palatability.The high growth performance of birds on 100% hungry rice replacement for maize is in agreement with the reports of Jideani and Akingbala (1993) that the crude protein content and amino acid profile of hungry rice grains may have stimulated a better growth response proportionate to the concentration of nutrient in the diets.The better FCR and protein efficiency ratio of birds with increasing maize replacement with hungry rice grain in the diets conformed with the reports by Ruskin et al. (1996) that acha grain is rich in methionine and cysteine the limiting amino acids of most cereals compared with maize grains

CONCLUSION
Acha (Digitaria exilis) grain is rich source of crude protein, mineral elements and amino acid when compared with maize.It also contains traces of tannins, phytate, oxalate and cyanide which were tolerated by broiler chicks in this feeding trial.Hungry rice grains can be used to replace maize up to 100% without any adverse effect on broiler performance.

Table 1 :
Dietary composition of starter broilers' diets

Table 2 :
Chemical composition and anti nutritional factor of hungry rice grains (% on DM basis)

Table 6 :
Echendu et al. (2009)owth Performance of Broiler Starter chicks Means on the same row with different superscripts are significantly (p<0.05)different.lowerthanvalues of 3.00 % reported by Anuonye et al. (2010).The mineral values (mg/100g) of 28.07 for Ca, 11.30 for Na, 21.73 for Mn and 131 for P were higher compared with reported literature values of 19.84, 1.29 and 1.21 mg/100g byEchendu et al. (2009).The overall mineral content obtained in this study did not corroborate with the findings of Anuonye et al.