Hatchability, Growth Performance, Feed Efficiency, and Survival of Normal Feathered Local, Sasso-rir and Their F1-cross Chickens Under on-station Management Condition in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The Normal Feathered local chicken (LL), Sasso-RIR (SRSR) and their F1-cross (LSR) chickens were hatched to evaluated for egg hatchability, growth performance, feed efficiency and survival rate. After 14-days of brooding, 150 chicks of each genotype were randomly selected and further replicated in to five pens in a deep litter grower house consisting of 30 chicks each in a completely randomized design, and evaluated for a period of 16-weeks. Hatchability of fertile eggs was highest for LL (80.0 %), intermediate for LSR (68.6%) and lowest for SRSR (55.9%) chickens. The body weight (BW) of chicks at 2-weeks of age was 80.0, 76.3 and 61.5 g/bird for SRSR, LSR, and LL, respectively, the latter being the lowest (p<0.05). The respective BW at 8-weeks of age was 732, 587 and 451 g while at 18-weeks it was 1877, 1379 and 1070 g/bird and different from each other (p<0.05). During 3- to 8-weeks and 9- to 18-weeks growth periods, the LL chickens were inferior (p< 0.05) in feed intake (29.7 and 66.9 g/d/bird) whereas the SRSR chickens were superior (p< 0.05) in body weight gain (15.5 and 16.3 g/d/bird) and feed conversion ratio (2.67 and 5.35 g feed/ g gain), respectively. The mortality rate of chicken was not affected by genotypes. It can be concluded that the exotic blood of Sasso-RIR chicken had played a significant role in upgrading the growth rate and market weight of the local Normal Feathered chicken without adverse effect on hatchability, feed efficiency, and survival rate.