PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMICS OF FINISHER BROILER CHICKENS FED DIFFERENT COMMERCIAL FEEDS

Abstract

The increased proliferation of substandard commercial poultry feeds has continued to be a threat to the progress of poultry production in Nigeria. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the utilization of four different commercial broiler finisher feeds sold in Bauchi town. Two hundred and forty (240) broiler chickens weighing between 1060.00 and 198.33g were randomly assigned to four commercial grade broiler: starter or finisher in replicates of four containing 15 birds each in a completely randomized design. Feed and water were supplied ad libitum and the feeding trial lasted for 3 weeks. Results for growth performance showed that except for feed conversion ratio, no parameter was significantly (P<0.05) affected. Final weight of birds which ranged between 1950.00 and 2200.96g, daily feed intake (124.26 – 157.39g) and daily weight gain (37.98 – 54.29g) were not significantly affected. However, feed conversion ratio (FCR) significantly (p<0.05) better on diet 2 (2.33) and 3 (3.06) and poorer on diets 4 (3.30) and 1 (4.79). Feed cost per kg was numerically lower on diet 4 (N140.00) and higher on diets 1 and 2 (N149.00). Feed cost per kg body weight gain wasnumerically lower on diet 2 (N341.13) and higherr on diet 1 (N599.77). It was therefore concluded that diets 2 and 3 which gave better feed conversion ratios had better quality than other diets and hence recommended for broiler chicken farmers