PERFORMANCE OF THREE STRAINS OF BROILER STARTER CHICKENS FED SAME DIET

Abstract

Ninety (90) day-old broiler chickens of three different strains fed with same diet were used in this study, which lasted for 28 days. The same diet containing 2950kcal/kg of metabolizable energy and crude protein of 22% was formulated for the study. Each strain of the broiler, namely Abor Acres (T1), Ross 308 (T2), and Cobb 500 (T3) formed the three treatments of 30 birds per treatment, which were replicated three times with ten birds per replicate using Completely Randomized Design. The data collected were subjected to ANOVA, where the means were different, Least Significant Test was used to separate the means. The initial weight of birds in T3 is significantly (P<0.05) higher than the T1 and T2 strain of birds. The result of the final weight, weight gained, total feed intake, average daily weight gained, and average daily feed intake had the same level of significance (P>0.05) across all the strains. Though there were numerical increase in the final weight (546.67g), weight gain (9183.33g), and average daily weight gain (57.04g) of T3 when compared to the T1 and T2. The result of the feed conversion ratio showed that there was no significant (P>0.05) difference across the treatment groups. It can be concluded that Cobb 500 strains of broiler could be raised for performance traits due to it higher weight gained. Although, Arbor acre and Ross 300 also have the potential to be used for same trait at the starter phase for farmers feeding the same diet.