Vol. 9, Special Issue 6, Part A (2024)

Author(s): VD Borkar, SB Adangle, AT Lokhande, RG Nimse and MU Tanpure

Abstract: The present experiment was conducted at the Poultry Unit, Veterinary Polyclinic and A.I. Center, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairy Science, Post Graduate Institute, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri Dist. Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India. The feeding trial of six weeks for growth performance was conducted which were subjected to four treatments and designated as treatment T_0, T₁, T₂ and T_3, respectively. Total 160 day-old chicks were selected for the experiment. The chicks fed with basal diet in control group (T0), while chicks in treatment T₁, T₂ and T3 were fed basal diet with Azolla meal powder @ 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 per cent each, respectively. All the birds were given isocaloric and isonitrogenous diets thought the experimental period. The weekly body weight changes of chicks indicated non-significant difference among various treatment groups during first two weeks of the experiment. Whereas, significant (P<0.05) difference among the treatments were observed from third week onwards. However, at the end of the sixth week, significantly (p<0.05) higher body weight gain in the T₂ and T₃ at par to each other was recorded. The overall feed intake of the birds showed the significant differences in that treatment were T3 observed higher feed intake followed by T₂, T₁ and T₀ (control) during the entire experimental period. During the initial two-week period, no significant differences were observed among the treatments. However, statistical significance (p<0.05) in terms of Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) was detected from the third to the sixth week of the trial.