GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF BROILER CHICKENS FED DIETS CONTAINING FOUR DIFFERENT OIL TYPES AT STARTER PHASE

Abstract

The growth performance of broiler chickens fed diets containing four different oil types at starter phase was investigated. One hundred and eighty (180) day old ROSS 308 chicks of mixed sexes were allotted into five (5) treatments, replicated three times, with twelve (12) birds per replicate, in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). Five diets were formulated as T1 (0% oil), T2 (4 % Palm oil), T3 (4% Palm kernel oil), T4 (4% Groundnut oil) and T5 (4% Shear butter oil) and fed to the broiler chicks throughout the experimental duration of four (4) weeks. The resultsshowed that final body weight, body weight gains and weekly feed intake were significantly different (P<0.05) between treatments. Initial body weight, feed conversion ratio, protein and energy efficiency ratios were not significantly different (P>0.05) between treatments. The highest final body weight (237.43 g), body weight gain (189. 70 g) and weekly feed intake (155.45 g)wererecorded in T5. The range of values of 46.47 g (T1) – 47.73 g (T5), 3.19 (T1) - 3.47 (T3), 1.39 (T3) – 1.49 (T2) and 0.09 (T3 and T4) – 0.10 (T1, T2 and T5) were recorded for initial body weight, feed conversion ratio, protein and energy efficiency ratios, respectively. The study concluded that the four types of oil do not have equal effect on the various growth parameters of the broilers in spite of the fact that the oil types were added at the same levels in the diet. However, it is right to suggest that shear butter oil inclusion will produce better growth performance without any deleterious effect.