The effect of different levels of date meals on cockerles performance

Abstract

In order to study the effect of replacing different levels of date meal to corn, 180 one-day-old male broiler Ros308 chicks with 5 treatments and 3 replicates were used. The chicks had free access to food and water during the experimental period. Five experimental treatments were as follows: the first treatment (control group) consisted of the diet which lacked date meal, the second treatment was the diet which contained %5 of date meal which replaced corn, the third treatment was the diet which contained %10 of date meal, in the fourth treatment %15 date meal was used and in the fifth treatment %20 of date meal was used. In this experiment, feed consumption, average daily gain, feed conversion and the measurement of the metabolism energy were recorded after the end of each week and the broiler chicks were weighted each week. At the end of the experimental period two broilers from each pen were selected, killed and then dressing percentage, abdominal fat (the fat around the cloaca and gizzard), intestines, gizzard, spleen, pancreas, liver and gall-bladder were measured. The best average daily gain was observed in the group which had %15 date meal. Maximum feed consumption was observed in the group with %5 date meal and minimum feed consumption in the control group. The most body weight gain was related to %15 replacement group and the most dressing percentage was related to %15 replacement of the date meal group. The most fecal moisture was related to %20 date meal. Considering intestinal histopathological study, the diet containing %10 date meal had the least effect on intestinal thickness. According to the results, 15% is the best level of date meal inclusion in the diet of cockerels.

Keywords

• Date meal
• Performance
• metabolizable energy
• Male broiler chick