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Effect of dietary energy level on growth performance and morphometric parameters of local barred chickens at the starter phase


HM Kuietche
JR Kana
HF Defang
CD Tadondjou
DDM Yemdjie
A Teguia

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine the influence of dietary energy level on the growth performance and morphometric characteristics of local barred chicks. The experiment lasted for 12 weeks. Three hundred and twenty day-old barred chicks were assigned to four different dietary treatments, having four replicates of 20 chicks each. Treatments consisted of D0, D1, D2 and D3 containing 2700, 2800, 2900 and 3000 kcal/kg of metabolisable energy respectively. The highest BW (868 g) and BWG (830 g) were recorded with treatment D1 and D3 (844 g and 804 g respectively). These values were significantly (P<0.05) higher compared to D0 and D2. The feed conversion ratio were significantly (P < 0.05) higher with  treatments D0 and D2 as compared to treatments D1 and D3. Feed cost per kg of body weight was significantly (P<0.05) lower for treatment D1 as compared to other treatments. Thus, metabolisable energy requirement of local barred chicks between 1 to 12 weeks is 2800 kcal/kg.

Keywords: Barred chickens, dietary energy, starter phase.

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eISSN: 1997-342X
print ISSN: 1991-8631