Low cost feed formulation for economical rearing of rural poultry

Abstract

Population explosion worldwide has increased the demand for egg and meat over year. In India Availability of easy, economical poultry feed at reasonable cost is key for successful poultry business. Incorporation of conventional feed ingrediants in poultry feed has increased the cost of production tremendously. This lead to search for alternative unconventional locally available cheap feed sources for reducing the feed cost which in turn can reduce the total cost of production of meat and egg and making them easily available at cheaper cost in rural India. Low cost rearing of poultry bird will be a boon for marginal farmers and landless poor. Various easily available unconventional feed sources such as azolla, jujube, fruit, wheat bran, available in local or rural region could be a better alternative to conventional poultry feed. In present study non-conventional feed sources was tested using different concentration of azolla, jujube fruit powder, and soybean grain and wheat bran. It is found that the treatment with Azolla (46.66%) + Jujube fruit powder (13.33%) + Soybean grain (26.33%) + Wheat bran (13.33%) was the best combination feed for poultry compared with the rest of the treatment and control. The birds fed with this feed did not showed any mortality however 40% and 30% mortality were observed in birds supplemented with control and market feed respectively.