Vol. 12, Issue 4 (2023)

Author(s):
Vikash Kumar, K Mukherjee, Mohan Singh, Deepti Kiran Barwa, Kaiser Parveen, Ashutosh Dubey and Aayush Yadav

Abstract:
The growth performance of native chicken of Chhattisgarh plains comprising of 756 day old chicks received from seven different hatches was studied. The chicks were reared under intensive management system at Poultry Unit, College of Veterinary Science and A.H., Anjora, Durg. Observations were taken from day old to 20 weeks of age. In addition to weekly body weight, growth rate, weekly feed intake, average total feed intake (kg) per bird and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were also studied. The overall weekly average body weights pooled over for seven hatches ranged from 24.31 g at day-one to 1005.25 g at 20th week of age. Average weekly body weight at 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th week of age was 103.52±0.69, 246.65±0.86, 453.09±1.31, and 704.08±2.93 g respectively. Analysis of variance for hatch effect on body weight showed that hatch has highly significant effect on body weights. Total feed consumption from day old to 20 week of age when it attains 1kg body weight was found to be 6.316 kg/bird. Weekly weight gain at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th week was 25.83g, 48.91g, 56.05g, 63.28g and 64.91g, respectively, whereas the feed conversion ratio (FCR) ranged from 5.1 at 4th week to 8.5 at 20th week of age. Overall FCR was 6.4. It can be concluded that the native chicken of Chhattisgarh are slow growing bird with poor growth rate and FCR, and suitable under backyard system of rearing. However, it can be possible to improve their growth performance by adopting appropriate breeding methods.