Vol. 9, Issue 12, Part E (2025)

The experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of dietary insoluble fibre supplementation on carcass characteristics and litter quality in commercial broiler chickens. One hundred sixty day-old Vencobb 430Y broiler chickens were used for the experiment. The birds were randomly distributed into five treatments with four replicates, each replicate consisting of eight birds. The experimental design used was a completely randomized design. The experimental treatments were designated as treatment T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅, where T₁ was tagged as a control diet without insoluble fibre supplementation, T₂ as a diet with 0.25% insoluble fibre, T₃ as a diet with 0.50% insoluble fibre, T₄ as a diet with 0.75% insoluble fibre and T₅ as a diet with 1% insoluble fibre supplementation throughout the experimental period of 42 days. There was non-significant difference in dressing (%), giblet (%) and abdominal fat (%) across the treatments, but dressed weight and heart weight were significantly higher (p<0.05) in T₃ compared to T₄ and Control (T₁). Litter moisture (%) was significantly reduced (p<0.05) in insoluble fibre supplemented groups T₄, T₅, T₂ and T₃ compared to the control (T₁) group. The study revealed that supplementation with 0.50% insoluble fibre improved dressed and heart weights in broilers. In addition, dietary insoluble fibre markedly reduced litter moisture, reflecting enhanced litter quality and improved hygienic conditions.