PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF BOILER CHICKENS FED DIET CONTAINING DIFFERENT OIL TYPES.

Abstract

This study was carried out at the poultry unit of the Teaching and Research Farm, Department of Animal Production, Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria. A Total number of 180 day old chicks were used for the experiment. The birds were randomly allotted into five treatment of three replicate consisting of 12 birds in a complete randomized design (CRD). T1 (birds fed control diet), T2 (were birds fed 4% palm oil), T3 (were birds fed 4% palm kernel oil), T4 (were bird fed 4% ground nut oil) and T5 (were bird fed 4% shea butter oil). The experiment lasted for 8 weeks. The result showed that at starter phase the final weight, body weight gained and feed intake were influenced (P<0.05)by the inclusion of oils while feed conversion ratio, protein and energy efficiency ratio were not significantly affected (P>0.05). The inclusion of 4% groundnut oil and shea butter oil (T4 and T5) showed significantly better growth performance in terms of final weight (214.43g) and (237.43g) compare to T3 (203.0g). At the finisher phase no significant (P>0.05) difference was recorded in final weight, body weight gain, feed conversion ratio, protein and energy efficiency ratio with exception of the average feed intake which was significantly (P<0.05) affected by the inclusion of oils, with control and treatment T5 showed best result (488.15g) and (453.74g) compare to those in treatment 3 and 4 (418.06g) and (441.96g). It can therefore be concluded that broiler chicken could tolerate 4% inclusion level of the various types of oil used in this research work without any adverse effect on their growth performance.