Comparative study of growth performance, meat quality and haematological parameters of Fayoumi, Rhode Island Red and their reciprocal crossbred chickens

Abstract

A total of 2001 unsexed day-old-chicks of each Fayoumi, Rhode Island Red (RIR), RIR × Fayoumi (RIFI) and Fayoumi × RIR (FIRI) were obtained from hatchery of Poultry Research Institute, Rawalpindi. The birds were maintained on deep litter system for a period of 20 weeks. The results revealed that the average day old weight was highest in RIR and FIRI, intermediate in RIFI and lowest in Fayoumi chickens. The RIR breed consumed more feed and gained maximum (P<0.05) weight gain than those of Fayoumi and crossbred chickens at all ages of growing phase. The poor (P<0.05) feed conversion was observed in Fayoumi and better feed conversion was recorded in RIR and both crossbred chickens. The crossbred chickens had lowest (P<0.05) mortality than purebred chickens. The highest dressing percentage was observed in FIRI (62.60) followed by RIFI (62.40%), RIR (57.50) and Fayoumi (54.08) chickens. The breast and thigh meat composition had non-significant (P>0.05) difference among pure and crossbred chickens. There was non-significant (P>0.05) difference in haematological values among all chickens. The total erythrocyte number, haemoglobin and packed cell volume increased with the advancement of age. However, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular haemoglobin values decreased gradually with the advancement of age. It may be concluded that crossbred chickens gained better body weight than Fayoumi and moderate than RIR chickens with lower mortality. The crossbred chickens of FIRI showed better performance in all traits than crossbred chickens of RIFI.