%N 3
%I SCIENCELINE
%L eprints1234
%A Bikila Negari
%A Yesihak Yusuf
%A Demissu Hundie
%J Journal of World's Poultry Research
%X The limits of commercial diets, their quality, and their rising costs are some of the major challenges to broiler production in Ethiopia. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate carcass yield characteristics and blood biochemical parameters of Cobb-500 and Hubbard chicken strains fed on farm-formulated diets (T1) and three different commercial diets (T2, T3, and T4). A total of 384 mixed-sex day-old chicks (192 per strain) were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments with four replicates, each consisting of 12 broilers. The experiment was set up as a 2 × 4 factorial design, providing each strain with four diets in a completely randomized design. After 42 days of the experiment, one male and one female of each strain from each pen (eight birds per treatment) were slaughtered for carcass yield and hematological analysis. Although diets had a significant impact on live body weight, feed conversion ratio, and feed consumption among the study treatments, they had no significant effect on the mortality rate of the broilers as a whole. There was a significant effect of strains on the weight of eviscerate, dress, thigh, drumstick, breast, neck, back, and eviscerate yield percentage, with Cobb 500 showing higher values than Hubbard broilers. The farm-formulated diet (T1) significantly increased the weight of non-edible offal compared to the commercial diets, except for the weight of crops and lungs, which were similar to those in commercial diet group T4. The Hubbard strain showed a higher least square mean for packed cell volume than the Cobb-500 strain. Sex was found to have no significant impact on the hematological parameters. The farm-formulated diet (T1) also resulted in a higher marginal return rate than that of the commercial diet (T3) in the Cobb-500 strain. These findings suggest that locally sourced farm-formulated diets could be a viable alternative to commercial diets for broiler chickens in the study area.
%P 308-323
%V 14
%D 2024
%T Carcass Characteristics and Blood Biochemical Parameters of Cobb-500 and Hubbard Chicken Strains Fed on Commercial and Farm-Formulated Diets
%K Broiler chicken, biochemical parameter, Carcass trait, Farm-made diet, Haematology, Profitable