Litter composition of four different broiler chicken strains fed with two types of common and specific feeds

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different strains of broiler chickens and feed types used on broiler litter quality. For this study, 416 broiler chickens were used as factorial experiment in a completely randomized design with two factors, four replicates and 13 chickens per pen. The first factor consisted of Ross 308, Arian, Cobb and A+ strains and the second factor included two types of common and specific feeds. The effect of the above factors was studied on quantitative and qualitative indices of the litter, general Linear Model was used in SAS software. There was no significant effect (p>0.05). The highest moisture, crude protein and nitrogen percentage were related to Ross (23.82 %), Cobb (22.67 %) and Arian (3.59 %), respectively. Also, the highest moisture, crude protein and nitrogen percentage of the feeds were 24.05%, 22.43% and 3.59%, respectively, which was observed in the common feed. Differences between strains and also, between compositions of feeds did not lead to a difference in the composition of the chicken farm litter.

Keywords: Broiler, Chicken, Strain, Feed, Starter, Grower, Finisher, Litter, Mineral, Moisture