Influence of Various Growth Patterns on Performance of Ross 308 Broilers

• Main Author: N. Eila1, A.G. Lavvaf1, T. Farahvash2* and A. Zarei1
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 2012-06-01
• Series: Pakistan Veterinary Journal
• Subjects: Performance; Carcass characteristics; Economic traits; Ross 308 strain; Broiler
• Online Access: http://pvj.com.pk/pdf-files/32_3/372-374.pdf

In order to compare the effect of different growth patterns (slow, rapid and compensatory), 300 one-day old ROSS male broiler chicks were randomly selected. Chicks were subjected to 4 treatments i.e., (T1-slow grower diet; T2-compensatory grower diet; T3-NRC (1994) based grower diet and T4- growth diet based on Ross catalog based grower diet) having 5 replicates (15 chicks per each replicate). Performance traits were: weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, carcass characteristics and economic traits. Treatments had significant effect on weight gain, feed conversion ratio and feed intake (P<0.05) and T4 had the highest weight gain and feed conversion ratio in chicks. Carcass characteristics were similar for all treatment groups. The percentage of liver was higher in T1 in comparison to T3 (P<0.05). The cost of a kilogram of diet was the highest in T3 group that resulted in the lowest economic efficiency, however, other treatments had better efficiencies (P<0.05). T1, T2 and T3 had similar growth performance, carcass traits and economic traits. It can be concluded from the results that growth diet based on Ross breeding catalog had the highest production index with low cost of feed. On the basis of results of this study, it can be recommended that Ross catalog based diets result in compensatory growth with higher economic indexes.