Abstract
Background: The ever-rising prices of feed ingredient remained to be the greatest single item determining the profit margins in poultry farming, especially in developing countries. The most appropriate strategy for these countries is to develop diets which allow locally available new ingredients to be used. This experiment was conducted to evaluate replacement of maize by sorghum on growth rate and feed conversion ratio, on Hubbard classic broiler chicken. Methods: Two-hundred forty chicks day-old with mean initial body weight of 42.5 ± 0.24 g were used for the experiment in complete randomized design. The experiment consisted of 28 days starter phase and 21 days finisher phase. The treatment were T1 (maize based, control), T2 (15% sorghum), T3 (30% sorghum) and T4 (45% sorghum). The experiment lasted for 7 weeks, during which dry matter intake (DMI), body weight gain were measured and Feed conversion ratio. Results: The laboratory chemical analysis of feeds showed that the CP content and ME values of the formulated feed were 22% CP and 3200 kcal/kg DM; and 21 CP and 2883 kcal/kg DM, for starter and finisher ration, respectively. No significant (P>0.05) difference was seen in daily, total DM intake, Final body weight, average daily body weight gain and DM conversion ratio between treatments and the control group for starter, finisher and entire period Conclusion: From the present study, it can be conclude that replacement of sorghum with maize up to 45% appeared to be biologically better and not having adverse effect on broiler performance.
Highlights
The ever-rising prices of feed ingredient remained to be the greatest single item determining the profit margins in poultry farming, especially in developing countries
This is important in Ethiopia since the availability and cost of feed is one of the major limitations to poultry production because of the fact that there is shortage of cereal grains, protein sources, vitamins and mineral supplements required to formulate balanced poultry rations, which are further aggravated by the competition between poultry and human for food and the upcoming alternative uses of major feed ingredients of poultry, such as maize
The energy and protein content of sorghum used in the present study is 3986.4 Kcal/kg DM and 11.4%, respectively which is comparable with that reported by [7] 11.6% Crud Protein (CP) and 3800.1 Kcal/kg DM Metabolizable energy (ME)
Summary
The ever-rising prices of feed ingredient remained to be the greatest single item determining the profit margins in poultry farming, especially in developing countries. The most appropriate strategy for these countries is to develop diets which allow locally available new ingredients to be used This experiment was conducted to evaluate replacement of maize by sorghum on growth rate and feed conversion ratio, on Hubbard classic broiler chicken. Further effort in this line is becoming evident as a result of changing conditions and a need for widening the range of the possible feed ingredients This is important in Ethiopia since the availability and cost of feed is one of the major limitations to poultry production because of the fact that there is shortage of cereal grains, protein sources, vitamins and mineral supplements required to formulate balanced poultry rations, which are further aggravated by the competition between poultry and human for food and the upcoming alternative uses of major feed ingredients of poultry, such as maize
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