Effect of Dietary and Litter Amendment on Litter Quality and Broiler Performance during Rainy Season

The study was conducted to determine the effect of low protein diet supplemented with enzyme protease along with litter amendment with sodium bisulphate to assess the effect on litter quality and broiler performance during rainy season. 240 day old Cobb broiler chicks were randomly distributed into four treatment groups, having 3 replicates of 20 chicks each. Control group (Tc) had no dietary and litter amendments and the other three included, litter amendment with sodium bisulphate (Ts), dietary amendment with low protein supplemented with protease enzyme (Tp) and both dietary and litter amendment (Tsp). Production parameters performance assessed by body weight, feed efficiency and survivability and litter parameters like litter pH, litter moisture, litter microbial count and litter nitrogen were studied. The result shows a significant (p<0.05) higher average body weight in Ts group (1633g) followed by Tsp group (1581g) than by Tp group (1535) in comparison to control (Tc) group (1515g) during 42 days of study. Best FCR was observed in Ts diet fed group. The survivability was more in all the treatments groups compared to control group. The overall hygiene and growth of broiler chick was better in Ts and Tsp group as compared to Tp and Tc group. It was concluded that that treatment with low protein diet along with protease enzyme supplementation recorded marginally equal body weight and FCR compared to control group however, litter amendment with sodium bisulphate shown significant improvement on the growth rate in the litter amended groups as compared to control group.