Escalation in the price of feed ingredients in developing countries has necessitated the exploitation of readily available agricultural waste for feed formulation. The aim of the study was the bioconversion of corn cob into a protein enriched substrate by fungal fermentation. The chemical composition of mono and co-fungal treated corn cob was determined by standard chemical methods respectively. In mono and co-fungal experiments, crude protein increased by 81.03% for mono-culture Penicillium italicum, 58.61% for mono-culture Trichosporonoides oedocephalis, while 56.31% increment was achieved for co-cultures P. italicum and T. oedocephalis when compared with untreated samples. The results showed a markedly reduction in the crude fiber from 58.18% for the control to 31.88 and 35.54% for mono-culture P. italicum and T. oedocephalis treated corn cob respectively and 30.10% in co-fungal treated substrate. There were also consistent decreases in mono and co-fungal treated corn cob, with the highest reduction of phytate and cyanide achieved in co-culture treatment and mono-fungal P. italicum respectively. There were significant (P<0.05) decrease in lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose content in all the treatments in comparison with control experiments. There was also significant decrease (P<0.05) in calcium and magnesium ions content of fungal treated corn cob in all the treatments.

Keywords: Corn cob, mono and co-cultures, fiber composition, proximate composition, nutritional status.