Odunsi, A.A. and Longe, O.G. 1995. Cocoa bean cake in poultry diets. I. Chemical composition and nutritive value of cocoa bean cake in pullet chick diets. J. Appl. Anim. Res., 7 : 91-97.Cocoa bean cake (CBC) contained 231 g kg-1 crude protein, 165 g kg-1 ether extract, 57.5 g kg-1 crude fibre, 83.7 g kg-1 ash and 22.4 g kg-1 theobromine. 180 commercial pullet starter chicks were randomly allocated to one of 6 dietary treatments consisting of control diet which contained groundnut cake as the main plant protein source and 5 other diets in which CBC supplied 50, 100, 200, 300 and 400 g kg-1 of total dietary protein. Feed and water were provided ad libitum for a period of 9 weeks. Daily feed intake and weight gain decreased a s dietary CBC protein increased. The level of CBC in the diet was strongly correlated with feed efficiency (r=0.92) and liver weight (r=O. 71) but inversely related to heart weight (mO.90) and kidney weight (m0.83). Significant differences (PcO.05) exhibited by blood characteristics showed that PCV, H b and RBC tend to decrease with increasing level of CBC. The efficiency of feed utilisation allowed CBC' to be included in chick starter diets at concentrations up to 200 g kg-1 diet.