Performance of White Pekin Ducks on Replacement of Maize with Cassava Tuber Meals

An experiment was conducted to study the performance of White Pekin ducklings when the cereal maize in the diet was replaced with different levels of water soaked and untreated cassava tuber meals (CTM). The water soaked CTM was prepared by soaking the previously chopped clean and freshly harvested cassava tubers in 1:2 water for overnight. Day old straight run White Pekin ducklings (n=240) were randomly divided into 5 equal groups namely CON, wsCTM-40, wsCTM-60, rCTM-40 and rCTM-0. The CON ducklings were provided with conventional control ration without containing any CTM. The maize in CON ration was replaced by water-soaked CTM in wsCTM-40 and wsCTM-60 and by raw CTM in rCTM-40 and rCTM-60 at 40 and 60% level, respectively. On completion of 6-weeks feeding trial significantly (P≤0.05) higher growth rate and lower FCR was observed in both water-soaked CTM groups (wsCTM-40 and wsCTM-60) than the other experimental groups. No significant differences between the groups were observed in their apparent metabolizability of DM, OM, CP. and GE. On carcass evaluation, a higher (P≤0.05) percentage of breast meat yield was observed in wsCTM-40, wsCTM-60 and rCTM-40 as compared to the CON group. It is concluded that maize could be replaced by water-soaked cassava tuber meals in White Pekin ducklings up to 40%. Higher beneficial effects were observed in water washed cassava tuber meals.