Boudouma et al., 2010. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 22 (6)

This work investigated the influence of wheat bran on the growth performance of broiler chickens from 14 to 56 days old. Four dietary treatments were used: control SB0 (0 % wheat bran), SB13 (13 % wheat bran), SB22 (22 % wheat bran) and SB32 (32 % wheat bran). One hundred and eighty, 14-days old broiler chickens were placed in 12 raised wire-floor pens with 15 birds per pen according to similar body pen weight. Each dietary treatment was replicated 3 times. Feed intake, body weight, feed conversion and mortality were measured. At the end of the growing period (14 to 42-d-old), diet SB13 is without incidence on all parameters studied (P> 0.05) compared to the control diet. However, SB22 and SB32 significantly reduced (P< 0.05) the body weight, body weight gain and feed conversion, but had no effect on the level of consumption and the rate of mortality of birds. The worst performances were recorded with the diet SB32.Between 43 and 56 days of age, feed consumption and mortality rate were similar between control, SB13, SB22 and SB32 (P> 0.05). Similar body weight gain and feed conversion were observed between the control and SB13, while SB22 and SB32 have reduced to a significant degree (P< 0.05) these two parameters .Overall results (14-56 days) indicate that SB13 led to the same performance than those obtained with the control diet.