Effect of different levels of dietary energy on growth performance of indigenous desi chicks reared in confinement up to target weight of 950 g

M Y Miah^1,3, S D Chowdhury¹, A K F H Bhuiyan² and M S Ali¹

¹Department of Poultry Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh - 2202, Bangladesh.
²Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh - 2202, Bangladesh.
³Department of Poultry Science, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet-3100, Bangladesh.
Corresponding author: myoumsau2003@gmail.com

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of different dietary levels of energy on growth performance and meat yields of indigenous (desi) chickens up to the target weight of 950 g. Two hundred sixteen indigenous unsexed chicks aged 3 weeks were considered for the feeding trial until the body weight reached at 950 g. Chicks were divided into four dietary treatments having three replications (18 chicks per replication) and reared on littered floor in an open sided house by providing 0.092 m² floor space per bird. Four iso-nitrogenous diets (23% CP) differing in energy contents were formulated to constitute dietary treatments. Diets for comparison were: Very low energy density (VLED): ME 2400 kcal/kg, low energy density (LED): ME 2600 kcal/kg, moderate energy density (MED): ME 2800 kcal/kg and high energy density (HED): ME 3000 kcal/kg. The contents of CP, ME, Calcium (Ca) and total Phosphorous in MED diet were fitted with the requirements of Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS 1992).

Body weight and Body weight gain were improved in HED and MED diets than the birds of VLED and LED diet during a rearing period of 3-14 weeks. Feed consumption increased in birds that received HED as compared to VLED, LED and MED groups. Feed conversion ratio decreased in MED and HED dietary group than VLED, LED groups. Similarly, live weight, breast, drumstick and head weight were  higher in HED, MED, LED than VLED groups respectively. Profit per bird increased with increasing level of the dietary energy densities. Energy levels of diet had no effect on survivability although birds belonging to HED suffered more from mortality. It was concluded that a nutrient density of 2800 ME kcal/kg and 23% CP would be enough to optimize growth rate and FCR of indigenous (desi) chickens.

Keywords: energy densities, indigenous, meat quality, performance

Introduction

Indigenous chickens play a vital role in household nutrition and income generation in rural areas of the tropics (Swatson et al 2001; Norris et al 2007). One of such indigenous chickens in Bangladesh is the common desi chickens. The colour of indigenous chickens varies (Islam et al 1998) but Faruque et al (2010) identified predominant plumage colour of three types of native chickens such as black brownish (33.3%) followed by white with black tips (28.3 %) and red brownish (18.3%). In contrast to exotic broiler chickens, little in terms of nutritional improvement is known about this indigenous breed. In this regard, determination of optimal dietary energy and protein level for maximizing production parameters and carcass characteristics of indigenous chickens has become very important. In addition, further processing of poultry to produce a variety of dismembered pieces of poultry products has placed more emphasis on meat yield, in addition to creating differences in management needs of different poultry producers. Perhaps, a practical feeding program should represent a compromise between the nutritional requirement of the animal and management needs, in order to balance poultry performance and economic yield. Hence, one possible way of achieving this balance would be to formulate diets that could be set to a specific protein to metabolizable energy ratio since metabolizable energy is usually considered as a starting point for feed formulation where all other nutrients especially protein and amino acids are set as a specific ratio to metabolizable energy (NRC 1994). Desi chicken may be more productive with improved diets when reared in confinement (Chowdhury et al 2006) but growth target or weight at marketing is yet to be determined as per demand of the consumers.

Although, presently there is little information on optimizing protein and energy level as a nutritional approach for improving productivity of indigenous chickens, it is expected that such procedure will help to simplify their feed formulation in addition to ensuring optimal performance in terms of feed intake, growth rate, feed conversion ratio, live weight and high meat yield. This will help to achieve the desired outcomes for different operations and enhance the economic, social and nutritional status of the rural farming households. The objective of this study was, therefore, to determine the responses in growth of indigenous (desi) chicks of Bangladesh in confinement by feeding diets containing different levels of energy. The evaluation of meat yield in chicks receiving diets of different nutrient density was also determined.

Materials and methods

The experiment was conducted with 3 weeks old indigenous unsexed chicks and it continued up to the achievement of body weight of 950 g. Chicks (n=216) were divided into four dietary treatments having three replications (18 chicks per replication) and reared on littered floor in an open sided house by providing0.092 m² floor space per bird. A pen was partitioned into 12 small equal pens, washed, disinfected and then used for experimental purpose. Four iso-nitrogenous (23% crude protein) starter diets were formulated differing in energy contents for conducting the feeding trial. Dietary treatments consisted of an arrangement of four diets that contained: starter diets, very low energy density (VLED): ME 2400 kcal/kg + CP 23%, low energy density (LED): ME 2600 kcal/kg + CP 23%, moderate energy density (MED): ME 2800 kcal/kg + CP 23% and high energy density (HED): ME 3000 kcal/kg + CP 23%. Growing period: very low energy density (VLED): ME 2300 kcal/kg + CP 17%, low energy density (LED): ME 2500 kcal/kg + CP 17%, moderate energy density (MED): ME 2700 kcal/kg + CP 17% and high energy density (HED): ME 2900 kcal/kg + CP 17%. The contents of CP, ME, Calcium (Ca) and total Phosphorous in MPD diet were fitted with the requirements of broilers as suggested by Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS 1992). Diets were formulated using locally available feedstuffs. Feed and water were supplied ad-libitum throughout the experimental period.

The chemical analyses of different feed ingredients were carried out by following standard methods (AOAC 2004; Kent et al 1967; Hall and Hacskaylo 1963). Proximate components, Calcium (Ca) and total Phosphorous (P) of those ingredients were determined in the Animal Nutrition Laboratory, Department of Livestock Services (DLS) and in the Department of Poultry Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University. Calcium and total P were determined by atomic absorption and spectrophotometer (FAO 1989). Amino acids were determined by amino acid analyzer in the Institute of Food Science and Technology of BCSIR Laboratory in Dhaka.

Records were kept of body weight, feed consumption, production costs, mortality and sale price of live bird. Feed conversion ratio (FCR), net return, cost benefit ratio (BCR) and survivability were calculated. One bird from each replication was randomly selected for processing after termination of the experiment. Feed was withdrawn 10 hours before processing. Water was made available. After processing the dressed weight was recorded. In addition, the weight of breast meat, thigh meat, drumstick meat, liver, neck, wing, head and gizzard were taken by an electric balance. Data were analyzed statistically using analysis of variance (ANOVA) in a completely randomized design followed by determining least significant difference (LSD) (SAS 2008).

Results and discussion

Growth performance

 Increasing dietary level of energy improved growth of experimental chicks (Table 2). Body weight was significantly improved more in HED and MED diets (P<0.001) than for birds of VLED and LED diet sduring the rearing period of 11 weeks (3-14 weeks of age). The trend of higher body weight on HED diet was clear from 8 weeks and onwards whereas VLED showed lowest trend in body weight during the same period (Figure 1). In general, the nutrient requirements of birds are influenced by genotype and body size. Large sized birds tend to require more dietary nutrients than their small sized counterparts. Mohammad and Sohail (2008) stated that Pakistan desi native chickens require 14% CP and 2750 kcal/kg ME to optimize their performance during a growing phase of 9 to 20 weeks. In this case, birds gained a maximum of 648 g in 11 weeks. Such nutrient density would have been too poor for the birds in the present study in which chicks were able to gain 950 g in 14 weeks. In Ethiopia, Tadelle et al (2003) found that larger local chicken ecotypes exhibited better growth indices under good management. The fact that birds used in the present study were able to gain so much body weight between 3 and 14 weeks of age would imply that their nutrient requirements were higher than those used in the study of Mohammed and Sohail (2008).

On the other hand, the findings of the present study disagreed with those of Ndegwa et al (2001) who reported that growth performance of Kenyan local chickens fed diets of 18–24% CP and 2842–3200 kcal/kg ME, between 6–19 weeks of age, was not significantly different. However, age is an important factor that contributes to a bird’s response to nutrient composition of a diet. In fact muscular protein deposition decreases as the bird advances to maturity (Samadi and Liebert 2006). Therefore, having fed the experimental diets to straight run and smaller genotypes, the findings of Ndegwa et al (2001) could not be conclusive.

Feed consumption differed significantly (P<0.05) from LED, MED and HED dietary groups had a similar trend in feed intake but only the HED group differed significantly from VLED. Feed conversion ratios were similar in MED and HED groups but differed significantly from VLED and LED groups (P<0.05).The effect of energy levels agree with NRC (1994), in which it has been stated that it is not always accurate to conclude that poultry adjust feed intake to achieve a minimum energy intake from diets containing different energy levels.FCR (4.21) of HED dietary group was very close to that of Dou et al (2009) for Chinese local breed Cushi (4.41) and Fotsa et al (2007) for different local breeds in Cameroun (4.34-5.34) at the age of 16 weeks.

Figure 1. Trend in weekly body weight of desi chicks fed on different energy density diets during 3-14 weeks of age.

Energy levels of diet had no effect on survivability. The mortality was 8.74% in VLED, LED, MED and 12.43% in HED dietary group during 3 to 14 weeks of age. (Faruque et al 2011) found that mortality rate was 7.16 %in desi chicken at 8 weeks of age. The mortality (8.74%) in this experiment was higher than that found by Moula et al (2009) for the Ardennaise (4.38%), by Sauveur (1997) for Label Rouge (2.5%) and standard (5.1%). On the other hand, it was much lower than that obtained during the evaluation of the aptitudes of growth of the Belgian local race, la Famennoise (15.25%; Moula et al 2009) and Fayoumi (9.8%) between 9 and 14 weeks of age (Azharul et al 2005). These differences may be related to hygiene conditions and health care that might have not been practiced. The variability of results in local breeds observed in all over the world may be related to variation in genetics, management, feeding and level of hygiene followed.

Carcass yield

Relative carcass part yields of desi chicken were calculated based on carcass weight (Table 3).  While dressing yield was similar in all dietary groups (61-62%), there was an increasing trend in breast meat weight with an increasing concentration of energy in the diet. No effect of energy on thigh meat, neck, gizzard, wing meat and liver weight was apparent. Drumstick meat showed highest value in MED group but it was similar to LED and HED groups with significant difference from VLED group.

No effect on dressing percentage, wing, neck, gizzard and liver weight is in agreement with the report of Nguyen and Bunchasak (2005) who found that the carcass yield of Betong native chickens was not affected by the varying dietary energy and protein levels from 3000 to 3200 kcal/kg ME and 17 to 23% CP respectively.

In the present experiment, live weight, breast, drumstick and head weight were higher at increasing levels of energy which contradicted with Kamran et al (2008) who showed that carcass yield, breast meat yield, thigh yield, abdominal fat and relative liver and heart weights did not differ when broilers were fed diets varying from 2717 to 3146 kcal ME /kg and 19 to 22% CP during the finishing phase.

Profitability analyses

Total cost of production differed between HED and VLED groups (Table 4).  Return per bird increased significantly with increasing level of the dietary energy density.  The result of BCR was 1.12 in MED group which was greater than other groups. It indicates that if desi chicken rearers invest Tk.1.0 then they can earn Tk.1.12. So, profit was Tk. 0.12. It was Tk. 23.10 per bird when sold live weight basis. Khan et al (2006) found that profit from Bangladeshi indigenous grower chicks was Tk.19/chick at 10 weeks after feeding a diet containing 19% crude protein and 2850 kcal ME/kg DM which was lower than the result of our moderate energy density(MED) diet (profit was Tk. 23/chick at 14 weeks of age). It could be concluded that desi chicks rearing would have helped to diversify and improve the income of the farmers.

Conclusions

• A nutrient density of 2800 ME kcal/kg and 23% CP (MED diet) would be required for indigenous chicks to achieve a target weight of 950g at 14 weeks age if reared in confinement.
  
  
• An improvement in meat yield characteristics in terms of dressed weight, breast meat, drumstick meat is possible during this period of growth. Feeding MED diet to such chicks was most profitable.

Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Ministry of Education, Govt. of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh for financing this project.

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Received 24 May 2014; Accepted 29 May 2014; Published 1 July 2014

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