Peformance and carcass characteristics of broilers fed graded levels of protein Banday M.T.*, Baba I.A., Adil S., Sheikh I.U. Division of Livestock Production & Management, Faculty of Veterinary Science & Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Kashmir, Shuhama, Alusteng, Srinagar - 190 006 (J & K) *Corresponding author: e.mail - bandaytufail173@gmail.com
Online published on 8 June, 2015. Abstract An experiment was carried out to evaluate the response of broiler chicken to different dietary protein levels. 144 one week old broiler chicks were randomly divided into three dietary treatments (isoenergetic with 2900 M.E) having protein levels of 20 (T1), 21 (T2) and 22% (T3). Body weight gains and feed conversion ratio (FCR) improved significantly (P<0.05) with increase in dietary CP (Mandal et al., 2010). Cumulative feed consumption increased (P<0.05) as the level of CP in the diet was reduced from 22% to 20%. Feed cost/kg live weight was lowest in T3 when compared with T1 and T2. Dressing percentage, breast meat yield and abdominal fat percentage were not altered significantly among various treatments. Feeding birds with 22% CP was found more economical and there was no significant effect (P>0.05) on the carcass characteristics of broiler chicken. Top Keywords Broiler chicken, graded protein, growth, meat. Top |