Broiler birds are those kept and reared for meat production
from day-old to about eight weeks of age for good quality
tender meat as source of protein in human diet. However,
the profit levels in poultry enterprises have been
constrained by a number of factors critical among which is
feed quality and cost. Feed is the major component of input
cost accounting for up to 70% (The poultry site, 2007) and
86-87% (Hassan et al., 2006) of the total variable cost of
production. The high feed cost has largely been attributed to
competition between man and animals for limited grains.
The situation has been further exacerbated by high cost of
operation of feed mills. Input costs and profitability of
broiler production require a critical review of feed cost as a
primary component. In recent years, farmers have
increasingly been formulating feeds for poultry using
locally available feed stuffs. Records on the performance of
farms using locally formulated feeds in the study area are
scanty. This study was carried out to compare profitability of
broiler production using on-farm prepared and commercial
feeds.