GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND SURVIVAL OF LOCAL AND WHITE LEGHORN CHICKEN UNDER INTENSIVE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the comparative growth, sexual maturity, survival, and feed utilization efficiency of local and White Leghorn chicken under intensive management condition. Five groups of each of the two breeds, with 200 baby chicks each, were subjected to appetite feeding with commercial layer's type starter's and grower's ration at day old to eight weeks and eight weeks to twenty weeks of age respectively in a completely randomised design with 5 replication. The results showed that mean daily feed intake and total feed consumption from hatching to maturity were significantly higher (P<0.05) for the local chicken the value of which seem to be overestimated due to their highly pronounced selective feeding and feed scratching behaviour. They attained 90 and 94% of the mean body weight of leghorn chicken at an age of 2 and 5 months, respectively. Mortality and the amount of feed required to raise day old baby chicks to maturity were also significantly higher (P<0.05) for the local chicken. Local chickens were inferior to the leghorn breed in terms of feed utilization efficiency and survival when kept in confinement. The results of this study suggested that there is no economic justification for keeping local chicken under intensive management systems due to their poor feed utilization efficiency and survival.