Al-Bowait et al., 2007. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 19 (9): 121

The study fell into two parts .In the first part date pits were treated with 3, 6, 9 or 12% NaOH solution to improve its digestibility. Both treated date pits (TDP) and untreated date pits (UDP) contained low crude protein (51-57 g/kg) and high crude fiber (188.2-149.7 g/kg). NaOH treatment improved dry matter digestibility (DMD). DMD coefficient of UDP was 0.137 and that of TDP varied between 0.187-0.198.DMD increased progressively with the increase in the strength of NaOH solution used to treat date pits.

 In the second part of the study 3% and 6% NaOH treated date pits partially replaced maize in broiler’s diet and were included at the rate of 10, 20, 30 or 40% of the diet. The eight experimental diets and the control diet that contained 40% maize and no date pits were assigned at random to nine groups of 44 day-old chicks each. Each group contained four replicates of 11 chicks. The diets were fed for six weeks. Overall mean feed consumption  on the control diet was 3042 g , feed conversion ratio was 1.807 units , survival rate was 95.46 % and  mean final weight was the were the heaviest . The corresponding values for chicks raised on diets containing treated date pits were 3151 g, 2.582 units and 85.5%, respectively. Carcass composition and eating quality of the meat was not affected by the treatment. The highest financial return was obtained on the control diet whereas the best financial return of date pits containing diet represented 0.77 of the returns displayed by the control group.