The Dietary Addition of Malted Barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.) Sprout Has an Impact on the Growth Performance and Carcass Parameters of Cobb 500 Chickens

Abstract

Effect of dietary inclusion of Malted Barley Sprout (MBS) on the growth performance and carcass characteristics of broiler chickens evaluated at Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center. The treatments were formulated with MBS inclusion 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% for T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅ respectively. Three hundred unsexed day-old Cobb-500 broiler chicks with similar body weight (BW) (45.2±0.18 g) were randomly assigned to the five treatment diets each with three replications for 8 weeks (56 days). At the end of the experimental period, two chickens, male and female, from each replication were randomly selected and slaughtered. The slaughter weight was 1400 g, 1298 g, 1213 g, 1213 g, and 993.3 g head^-1 (SEM=62.9) for T₁, T₂, T₃, T_4, and T₅, respectively, and T₅ poorly (P<0.05). The breast, thigh, and giblet weights, only birds that fed T₂ non-significant (P>0.05) difference to that of birds under the control diet. No differences (P>0.05) were observed in the dressing and fat percentages among the treatments while drumstick difference (P<0.05) among the treatments. The average mortality rate was 3.3, 5.0, 5.0, 3.3, and 6.67% (SEM=1.83) for T₁, T₂, T₃, T_4, and T₅, respectively, and had no significant (P>0.05) difference among the treatments. Therefore, from this study, it could be concluded that MBS inclusion in the diets of Cobb-500 broiler chickens up to the levels of 10% did not affect the health of the chicks, growth performance, and most carcass traits that indicate the cheap and potential of MBS as an alternative feed ingredient in the broiler chicken diets.