TITLE:
Age and Gender Depending Growth of Feathers and Feather-Free Body in Modern Fast Growing Meat-Type Chickens
AUTHORS:
Christian Wecke, Daulat Rehman Khan, Angela Sünder, Frank Liebert
KEYWORDS:
Growing Chickens, Feather Percentage, Feather-Free Body, Age, Gender
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Animal Sciences,
Vol.7 No.4,
September
13,
2017
ABSTRACT: Two growth experiments with fast growing meat type
chickens (Ross 308) were conducted to assess the growth of feathers and
feather-free body dependent on age and gender (male:female ratio = 1:1). Birds
were reared under uniform management and feeding conditions (floor pens; 15
pens per gender; 5 birds per pen) during the starter (day 1 to 22) and grower
period (day 22 to 36). Diets were based on corn, wheat, soybean meal, soybean
protein concentrate and balanced with feed amino acids to ensure an equal feed
protein quality close to the ideal amino acid ratio by a constant mixture of
the feed proteins. At start of the experiment and further on weekly up to the
end of the 5th week, 15 birds per gender (each 3 pens of 5 birds)
were selected and 24 h fasted before quantitative de-feathering. Both
feather and feather free body fractions were significantly increased with increasing
age of the birds (p p