Use of Spent Brewers’ Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in Feeds to Replace Soya Bean on Performance, Carcass Characteristics and Internal Organs of Broiler Chickens

Abstract

Spent brewers’ yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) which is a good source of protein, amino acids, vitamins, crude fibre and metabolizable energy remains underutilized in spite of its several advantages. Spent brewer’s yeast was used to formulate poultry feed replacing soya bean in graded levels and used in broiler chicken production. Objective: To investigate the effect of spent brewers’ yeast on growth performance, carcass characteristics and internal organs of broiler chickens. Methods: Two hundred 14 day old “sayed” broiler chickens were used to determine the growth performance and carcass characteristics as well as internal organs fed the formulated feeds. Five experimental diets containing 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% spent brewers’ yeast used to replace soya bean were formulated and used to feed broiler chickens for 50 days. The experiments were in a completely randomized design with the five treatments each replicating four times with 40 birds per treatment and 10 birds per replicate. Results: The average live weight of broiler chicken ranged from 1963-2063 g across all the treatments but were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by dietary treatment. Similarly, growth rate and feed conversion ratio were not significantly affected by dietary treatment (P > 0.05). Average daily feed intake was however significantly affected (p <0.05). Carcass yield showed that live weight, plucked weight, dressing percentage, breast, wings and caeca were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by the dietary treatment. However, thigh, abdominal fat, drumstick and back were significantly affected (P <0.05). The percentage weight of the internal organs were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by the dietary treatments except small intestine which was significantly affected (P < 0.0). Conclusion: The results showed that spent brewers’ yeast can be used to replace soya bean up to the levels tested providing protein without adverse effect on growth performance, carcass characteristics and internal organs of broiler chickens