Feed Texture and Light Treatment Effects on the Performance of Chicken Broilers

Abstract

A total of 4800 broiler chicks from a commercial parent genotype was used in two experiments to evaluate effects of feeding finisher diets containing different levels of "fines". These experiments also included a comparison of incandescent continuous green lighting and white lighting with continuous and intermittent exposure at different intensities, including one treatment which was phased down to darkness at 21 days of age and continued to 49 days of age. Fines used in these diets were ground pellets having equivalent levels of protein, fat and fiber. Performance of birds fed crumbled starters (1-28d) and pelleted finishers (29-49d) was superior to birds fed all-mash starters and finishers. As the proportion of fines in finisher diets increased, there was a significant decrease in body weights and monetary returns.Performance under both intermittent white lighting vs. continuous white or green lighting had no differential impact with light intensity of .5 lux or 7 lux from 21 to 49 days of age. Broilers grown in darkness from 21 to 49 days performed well although body weights were reduced compared with birds grown in light. There was no evidence of an interaction between light and feed texture treatments.

Effects of feed form on growth performance and processing yields of broiler chickens during a 42-day production period

“…In agreement with the current research, Proudfoot and Sefton [2] evaluated growth and meat yield responses of broilers fed diets containing varying proportions of fines from 28 to 49 d of age. Broilers fed pelleted diets with 0% fines had the highest 49-d BW, whereas cumulative Means within a column without a common superscript differ (P < 0.05).…”

“…Advantages of feeding pelleted diets are improved flowability with mechanical feeding systems, decreased feed wastage, and an enhanced rate and efficiency of growth [2][3][4]13]. The improvement in broiler performance due to pelleting relates to less time devoted to eating translating to reduced energy spent for prehension [24,25].…”

“…Therefore, optimizing feed conversion at effective costs is of utmost importance. Providing meat birds diets in whole pellet form improves the rate and efficiency of growth [2][3][4][5]. Cutlip et al [6] examined the performance of broilers fed diets differing in pellet quality.…”

The Effects of Dietary Micronutrient, Fat and Protein Components in Pelleted Feeds on the Incidence of Sudden Death Syndrome and Other Traits Among Male Broiler Chickens

“…The diets fed to the broiler chickens in these experiments were in the ground form; thus, the growth rate was less than that expected for crumbled and pelleted feeds (Proudfoot and Sefton 1978).…”

Effect of Dibasic Calcium Phosphate (Ad Libitum) and Feed Texture on the General Performance and Incidence of Leg Abnormalities of Roaster Chickens

“…Subsequently a simple three-stage (starter-grower-finisher) low protein dietary program was developed (Hulan and Proudfoot 1981) (Edwards 1984;Hulan et al 1985Hulan et al ,1986 (Runnels et al 1976;Proudfoot and Sefton 1978;, others (Allred et al 195'7 ;Pepper et al 1960;McNaughton and Reece 1984) have found that when dietary energy was increased by adding up to 5% animal fat, the improvement in feed conversion due to the peieting process was decreased. More iecently, however, a study by Reece et al (1934) This probably reflects the anatomical adaptation of the roaster to mash feeding (Lepkovsky et al 1960;Nir and Nitsan 1979) and the compensatory growth of roasters as discussed elsewhere (Hulan 1985 tend to support this conjecture.…”