Comparative Performance of Broiler Finisher Feeds in Zanzibar

Abstract

Poor quality of feeds reduce performances of broilers and reduce profit margin. The main objective of this study was to evaluate three commercial and one ZALIRI formulated broiler finisher feeds in view of providing quality and affordable feeds to chicken farmers. Three commercial feeds i.e. Diet 1 – pellets (Control), Diet 3 – Mash and Diet 4 - Mash Finisher feeds and ZALIRI formulated ration marked Diet-2. Complete Randomised Research Design was used to execute the study. A total of 800 day old “Cobb 500” broiler chicks were purchased and brooded for two weeks achieving all management practices together. At the beginning of third week, 240 chicks were selected and allotted to four different treatments and their replicates. Initial weight of each chick, feed intake, weight gain and carcass characteristics were taken and recorded from third to sixth week. The stocking density of 7.5 broilers per metre square was used i.e. 15 birds/2m2. Deep litter system was applied and materials used were wood shavings at a depth of 4 inches from the concrete floor. Feed intake, weight gain and carcass weight data were subjected to ANOVA and treatments’ means were compared using A General Linear Model (GLM) procedure of SAS (2002) was used to analyse data to obtain means, cost-benefit analysis was done using excel (Office 2013). Results showed that the control treatment had overall higher performance (p<0.05) on live and carcass weights and gross-profit margin. Diet 2 and 3 achieved almost the same average daily gain, total weight gain and carcass weight were significantly (p<0.05) higher compared to D4. The diet 2 had higher (p<0.05) gross-profit margin comparing to mash diets D3 and D4. It is concluded that “the locally formulated feed” is capable of producing live weight broiler of 2.247kg and carcass weight of 1.8 kg at sixth week. Quality and affordable feeds can be produced locally under supervision of Regulatory Body to boost the sub sector development in the country.