Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mohsen Zaker_Jafari ¹
• Mehrdad Mohammadi ²
• Maziar Mohiti-Asli ²

¹ Master, Agricultural jihad of Lahijan, Lahijan, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

Abstract

The effect of chick initial body weight and dietary nutrients density on growth performance and immune response were investigated using 360 Ross 308 one-day-old straight run chicks (mixed sex) in a completely randomized design with 2×3 factorial arrangement of treatments, four replicates and 15 birds per replicate. The initial body weight of chicks was grouped as 42±1 g (standard weight); 38±1 g (light weight; 10% under standard weight); 46±1 g (heavy weight; 10% over standard weight) while the nutrients density of the diet was either 5% lower than the nutritional recommendation of Ross 308 (typical commercial diet in Iran), or as recommended by Ross 308 manual (high-density diet). Chickens fed the high-density diet had higher daily weight gain and lower conversion ratio than chickens fed the typical diets (P<0.05). The effect of dietary density and initial body weight of chicks on carcass components and weight of internal organs were not significant except for heart. Broilers fed the high-density diet and heavy weight had higher antibody titers to sheep red blood cell (P<0.05). Light chicks fed the high-density diets had greater total anti sheep red blood cell and immunoglobulin G titers than light chicks fed the typical diets (P<0.05). Results indicate that feeding light chicks with high-density diets increases their growth rate compared to the chicks with standard or heavy weights. Moreover, feeding diets with a high density of nutrients to light chicks can improve immune responses.

Keywords

• Carcass yield
• Chick initial weight
• Growth rate
• Immune response
• Nutrient density