CONTRIBUTORY EFFECT OF POST BROODING AGE ON GROWTH PARAMETERS OF ABOR ACRE BROILER CHICKEN

Abstract

Growths in broiler are mostly in two phases of starter and finisher. The most profound developmental changes, both qualitative and quantitative, occur at starter phase which are sometimes relatively short when compared with the finisher phase. Knowing the contributory effect of the finisher phase on growth will guide farmers to optimized profitability. The study analyzed the growth performance and the correlation between weight and age of abor acre commercial broiler strains, post brooding. A total of one hundred and fifty day old chicks were used for the study. The chicks were fed commercial starter mash between day one and 28 days and then changed to finisher crumble for the period of the study. The initial weight of the birds were taken individually at day 28 and were subsequently weighed at 5 days interval for the duration of the study. All data collected were analyzed using the general linear model procedure of SAS (1999) to estimate the heritability, repeatability and the correlation coefficient. The result of the study showed that percentage weight gain increased at a reducing rate as age increases. The standard deviation (SD) for the mean weight ranged between 25.17 and 35.54, showing little genetic by environmental variations between the individual body weight records and the overall mean. The coefficient of variation (CV) were low and ranged between 1.34 and 3.07. The values were relatively similar, suggesting a more precise estimate of the body weight. The study also recorded an average total weight gain of 1115.51g in body weight for the duration of the study which translated to 55.78g average body weight on daily basis and 5.00% in growth and development. The repeatability and heritability estimates obtained in this study were between 0.62 and 0.77, and 0.27 and 0.50 respectively. This was suggestive of reduced impact of environment as the bird increases in age. The correlations between the ages were positive, high and shows significance (P<0.05) as the bird increases in age with phenotypic correlation coefficient ranging between 0.63 and 0.92, the genetic correlation coefficient ranged between 0.51 and 0.89 while the environmental correlation ranged between 0.88 and 0.99. The study therefore concludes that environmental variation fades off as the bird advances in age and as age increases the weight was increasing at a reducing manner.