Influence of Different Time Regimes of Feed Restriction on the Performance of Broilers in Summer

Four hundred and fifty, day-old Straightrun ’Lohman’ strain commercial broiler chicks were equally and randomly distributed in to six treatment groups. The dietary treatment groupswere Group A, control diet and fed as ad libitum feeding and group B, feed restriction for twelve hrs at day time and feeding at night time (6.00 am to 6.00 pm); Group C, feed restriction for 9 hrs during day time (10.00 am to 7.00 pm); Group D, feed restriction for 6 hrs during day time (10.00 am to4 pm);Group E, feed restriction for 3 hrs during day time (12.00 pm to 3.00 pm) and group F, feed restriction at night and feeding at day time (6.00 pm to 6.00 am). The data on initial body weight, cumulative feed consumption, weight gain, and mortality (if any) were recorded. The dressing percentage, The abdominal fat percentage, abdominal fat pad thickness studies were carried out. The birds with feed restriction at day time for six hours (10 am-4 pm) had shown slightly higher body weights than control ad-lib feeding group. Whereas, lowest body weight was observed in feed restriction for three hours (12 pm-3 pm). The cumulative feed consumption and cumulative feed efficiency found to be non significant in all the groups. The maximum dressing percentage was observed in feed restricted birds during 10 am-4pm (72.03 ± 0.55) and lowest dressing percentage was found in 10 am-7 pm (67.07 ± 2.02) feed restricted birds. Abdominal fat percentage and abdominal fat pad thickness was found to be highest in control group A with ad-libitum than restricted feeding birds. The mortality was higher in control group as compared to the restricted feeding. The results of the present study, revealed that feed restriction have significant effect on final body weights. Whereas, feed consumption and feed conversion ratio has non-significant effect. It reduces the mortality as compared to control group. Thus, restricted feeding is beneficial on economic point of view and reduced the feed cost.