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Sudan Journal of Agricultural Research

 Feed restriction and compensatory growth on broiler chickens

II. Effect of age at feed restriction

Sayda A. Mohammed and Hayder O. Abdalla¹


Abstract

A total of 225 unsexed broiler chicks (Ross strain) were used to study the effect of feed restriction duration on compensatory growth. A completely randomized experiment with three treatments was conducted. Two feeding durations of 7 days feed restriction starting at 15 day of age (R 15-21) and 14 days feed restriction starting at the same age (R 15-28) beside the control group were used. Restricted chickens were fed on 50% of the quantity of feed consumed by the control group that was fed ad-libitum. During feed restriction, both restricted groups had significantly (P<0.05) lighter body weights compared with the control. However, during realimentation period, the realimented chickens exhibited compensatory growth. At the end of the experiment the short-term restricted group succeeded to catch-up the control final body weight (eight weeks of age) with less feed intake, while the long-term-restricted group did not. Both feed restricted groups showed better feed conversion ratio (FCR), low abdominal fat pad (AFP) weight, high dressing percentage and low mortality rate.


 

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Sudan Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 7 (2006) PP. 67-72