Nutritional Management of Broiler Rearing Farms in Guilan, Iran

Abstract

From a total of 656 broiler farms with the permission of exploitation in Guilan province, data was gathered from 20%of active farms including 85 units (Capacity of over 1663000portions of broiler chickens) to evaluate the management ofnutrition and nourish using questionnaire. The questionnaireswere completed by the interview method. The methods ofmaking feed, feed formulation, the shape of grain, the frequencyof feeding, the type of dietary supplement and food additives,the use of experts, feed conversion ratio, causes of mortality, theage of mortality, drinking and feeding systems, and how to usefine nourishing (in the shape of supplement or concentrate)were considered in this study. The performance was calculatedfor each broiler farm. According to the production index, thefarms were divided into three groups of weak (200+25), medium(250+25), and good (300+25) and their differences were compared.According to the results, among the managerial factors, thefactors such as: feeding system, water quality, the conformity ofration in nutrition with the needs of commercial strains anddrinking management, have the most portion in creating thethree groups of good, medium and weak, among the broilerrearing farms. Thus, in the study of each group’s feeding system,the good group has the highest percentage of using automaticsystems (86/60) and the weak group has the highest percentageof using manual systems. In comparing three groups regardingthe drinking water quality, it was observed that good, mediumand weak groups drink 92%, 61.84%, and 75% fresh water, respectively. Furthermore, in the weak group, most of the farmshave used the water with tolerable hardness or saltiness. Finally,the conformity of strain’s requirement with diet was examinedamong groups. The results showed that 16.5% of units followedthis conformity and the percentages of the good, medium, weakgroups was 11.12%, 28%, 53.5%, respectively

Keywords

• Nutrition management
• Broiler chickens’ rearing farms
• Guilan province