Introduction and Demonstration of Commercial Broilers (Cobb-500) in and around Hawassa Town

Abstract

This study was conducted at Hawassa zuria district with the aim of demonstrate full fledge poultry packages in and around urban areas to enhance meat production by introduction and demonstration of Commercial broilers (cobb-500) chicken breed. Totally 500 a day old chickens of Coob 500 broilers breed were purchase from Alema poultry multiplication and dissemination farm and 50 DOC’s disseminated to each of the selected farmers with 50 kg of starter feed. Brooding was done using electrical brooder. The average weight old day old chicks was 41.1 g. The average weight of birds at end of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th , 6th and 7th weeks were 116.1, 209.4, 268.5, 546.7, 832.7, 981.3, 1233.6 respectively. The average final weight was 1264.7g (ranged 1106.4g–1264.7g). The average daily feed intake/bird and cumulative feed intake/bird during the entire period was 79.84g and 3887.6.9 g, respectively. The cumulative average feed conversion ratio (FCR) was 3.6. The total cumulative mortality was 5.6%. The result of the study signify that broilers producers requires high attention for all management issue particularly for feed, If they could not purchase and use commercial feed. Otherwise; it will not be an easy task to bring broilers in to marketable weight within seven weeks of growing period.