University of Tadulako, Animal husbandry Department, Palu, Central Sulawesi and †Agriculture bureau at Buol Regency, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

Tofu waste is a by-product of tofu production. This by-product is of limited acceptance by  farmers  and  animal  nutritionists  due  to  high  fiber  content.  Fermentation  and  enzyme supplementation have been practiced for quite a long time to improve nutritive value of feedstuffs. An experiment  was  conducted  to  evaluate  the  effect  of  levels  of  tofu  waste,  fermentation  and  enzyme supplementation  on  body  weight  gain  and  feed  digestibility.  This  study  was  for  six  weeks.  128 unsexed  Cobb  chicks  were  used  in  this  study.  The  birds  were  fed  eight  different  diets.  Aspergillus niger was  used for fermentation  and  multi  enzyme  product  was added  into the  diet. Feed and  water were given ad-libitum. A completely randomised factorial design was adopted in this experiment with two  levels  of  tofu  waste  (5%  and  15%),  fermentetaion  (with  and  without  fermentation  ),  enzyme supplementation  (with  and  without  enzyme  addition) and  four  replicate  cages.  Data  indicated  that increased body weight gain was achieved when unfermented tofu waste diet was supplemented with enzyme.  In  contrats,  when  the  birds  were  fed  fermented  tofu  waste  diet,  enzyme  supplementation impaired body weight gain. Digestibilities of dry matter and protein decreased when a 5% tofu waste was fermented but a significant improvement was found in a15 % tofu waste diet due to fermentation. In conclusions, there were interactions between fermentation and enzyme in weight gain and  between levels  of  tofu  waste  and  fermentation  in  digestibilities  of  dry  matter,  crude  protein  and  digestible protein intake.