Effect of restricted feeding on carcass characteristics of Koekoek chickens

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of feed restriction on carcass characteristics of Koekoek chickens. Two hundred and seventy hens and twenty seven cocks were randomly allocated to four feeding level treatments in a completely randomized design in chickens were full-fed in the rearing and laying phases (AA), chickens were full-fed in the rearing phase and restricted fed during the laying phase (AR), chickens were fed restricted feeding in the rearing phase and full-fed in the laying phase (RA) and chickens were fed restrictedly during the rearing and laying phases (RR). Each treatment had seven replicates (10 animals per replicate) with the exception of RR treatment which had six replicates (10 animals per replicate). Collected data was subjected to SPSS (17.00) package and analyzed by using analysis of variance (ANOVA). In the rearing phase, feed restriction resulted in reduced slaughter weight, dressing weight, skin weight, breast muscle weight, shank width, chest width and heart girth (P<0.05). Abdominal fat weight was higher (P<0.05) in chickens that were full-fed. At the age of 32 weeks, the effect of compensatory growth was prominent in chickens that that were subjected to RA treatment in a number of carcass traits. It is concluded that full feeding only in the laying phase (RA) would be the appropriate feeding management technique if chickens were to be slaughtered in the laying phase.