Role of germinated feed supplementation on growth of broilers

Archana Jain and Mohit Gautam

Role of germinated feed supplementation on growth of broilers

Archana Jain and Mohit Gautam

College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, India

: J Vet Sci Med Diagn

Abstract

Poultry farming in India, in spite of several constraints, has progressed considerably during the last decade. Poultry production in India was confined to backyards till recently. Local breed of birds were reared for the supply of eggs and meat. The increasing demand for poultry products due to higher protein and nutritive values necessitates augmenting the supply of these poultry product. The present study has been undertaken to examine various aspects related to the growth and development of poultry production under natural conditions using natural least costly products in the country. Supplementation of germinated sorghum in the diets of broilers in place of normal maize as the grain part gives very good results in term of better growth performance of the broilers as well as the taste of the broiler meat. The experiment was conducted on 200 broiler day old chicks, which are randomly divided into five groups of 40 chicks each. The germinated sorghum was added as 25, 50, 75 and 100% of the total grain portion. Group 1 is kept as control, in group 2 the germinated sorghum was added 25%+75% normal sorghum, group 3 the ratio is 50:50, group 4 it was 75:25 and in group 5 100% germinated sorghum is added to the feed of broilers. The live body weight and feed conversion efficiency was taken every week. It was observed that when the 50% and 75% germinated sorghum was added in the feed the growth rate was significantly higher than the other supplemented and non-supplemented groups. Likewise the feed conversion efficiency was also significantly higher which means the bird has taken less feed but the conversion efficiency to the meat was more. On the basis of this it is concluded that the use of germinated grains give much profit as there was no use of costly growth promoters in this study.