Research Article
Cosmas C. Ogbu, Joseph J. Tule
Abstract
The study was conducted to evaluate growth and laying parameters of light (LBW) and heavy (HBW) body weight chickens fed commercial feed (CF) or locally formulated feed (LF). Two hundred and sixty (260) day old chicks (130/genotype, sexes combined) were used for the study. They were separated into sexes after 8 weeks of brooding and females of each genotype were assigned to either CF (T1) or LF (T2). Feed and water were provided ad libitum. Data collected included body weight (BW) from 0-8 weeks (sexes combined) and 8-20 weeks (females), daily feed intake (FI), pause length and number, and clutch length and number. Body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were computed. Genotypes and rations were compared using independent samples t – test. Genotypes differed significantly (P ˂ 0.05) in all the traits except pause length, pause number and clutch number. Heavy local chickens were higher in BW, BWG, FI and FCR. Heavy local chickens fed either CF or LF had higher BW, BWG, FI, FCR, and clutch length compared to their light body weight counterparts. Genotype x feed type interaction significantly (P<0.05) influenced the growth parameters but not the laying parameters. It was concluded that genotype and feed type influenced growth and laying parameters in the local chickens and that variations due to genotype could be utilized in the genetic improvement of the local chicken of Nigeria while the favourable effect of locally made feeds could help in reducing the cost of feeding local chickens.