**Abstract**

The world's demand for poultry products is increasing at an alarming rate, therefore the need for innovations to mitigate the required inputs for sustaining this demand. The challenges of poultry farming attributed to their health, and nutritional requirement is vital to successful poultry production either at a subsistence or at a commercial level. Feed accounts for about 70–80% of the overall production costs. Meeting the nutritional requirements of poultry impacts positively on their health performance. Adequate feeding enables the birds attain table weight earlier than their counterpart that are poorly fed, which could be profitable or not as it depends on the costs of inputs in each production cycle. The essence of poultry farming to an investor is to make profit; however, should poultry farmers continuously make profit, they need to apply workable alternatives suitable for the conventional inputs such as protein, energy sources, plant extracts for orthodox medication, and brooding materials.

**Keywords:** poultry farming, alternatives, replacement levels, feed, profitability
