ABSTRACT

An experiment was conducted on 126 unsexed commercial broilers (Ross 308). Birds were individually weighed and grouped according to their body weight at day old. They were assigned to three (3) groups according to their body weight (i.e. 39grams and below, between 40-42grams and above 43grams and above). Each chick was wing tagged and tag number recorded according to group. All chicks were fed the same diet and they were weighed at the end of every week. At eight weeks of age, the body linear measurement was taken on all birds in each group.). In this study, the variable used were; Body weight at week 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 which was represented by BWT0, BWTl, BWT2., BWT3, BWT4, BWT5, BWT6, BWT7 and BWT8 respectively. Also, wing length, drum stick length, shank length and leg length were represented by WG_LT, DS_LT, SH_LT, and LEG_LT respectively. Data obtained on body weight was subjected to analysis of variance using the GLM procedure of SAS. The body linear measurement data was analyzed using correlation procedure of SAS. The result of this experiment shows that the group with the lowest body weight at hatch showed significant difference (P< 00) from the other groups until the fourth week. Staiting from the 4th week of the experiment till 8th week of age, the lowest body weight group and the medium body weight group were not significantly different in body weight while the highest body weight group maintained its position till the end of the experiment. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE................................................................................................................................ 1

1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Problem Definition .................................................................................................................... 2

1.2 Aim and Objective ........................................................................................................................... 2

CHAPTER TWO................................................................................................................................. 3

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................ 3

2.1 Origin and distribution of chicken ..'................................................................................................. 3

2.1.1 Broilers ......................................................................................................................................... 3

2.2 Taxonomy ........................................................................................................................................ 4

2.3 Feeders and drinkers space .............................................................................................................. 5

2.4 Vaccination and Disease control ..................................................................................................... S

2.5 Ventilation ....................................................................................................................................... s

2.6 Feeding Programme ........................................................................................................................ 6

2.7 Growth Performance and Linear Measurement of Broiler Chickens .............................................. 6

2.8 Factors affecting growth performance in broilers (poor body weight) ........................................... 9

2.9 Stocking density and enzymatic growth promoters on broiler performance ................................. 10

2.10 The effect of grouping one-day-old chicks by body weight on the uniformity of broilers ......... 11

CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................................... 14

3.0 MATERIALS AND METHODS ................................................................................. :................ 14

3.1Housing and study location of experiment.. .................................................................................. 14

3.2 Experimental birds and management ............................................................................................ 14

3.3 Data Collection .............................................................................................................................. 17

3.4 Experimental design ...................................................................................................................... 17

3.5 Data analysis ................................................................................................................................. 17

CHAPTER 4 ...................................................................................................................................... 18

4.0 RESULT ........................................................................................................................................ 18

 4.1 Effect of group body weight ofchicks at day-old on body weight gain to eight weeks ............... 18

Table 4.1. Effect of day-old weight on weekly body weight of broilers ............................................. 19

4.2 The Correlation between Body Weight and Body Linear Measurements at 8weeks .................... 20

Table 4.2.1 Summary statistics for group 1(below 39g) .................................................................... 21

Table 4.2.2 Correlation between eight week body weight and body linear measurements for group 1 (39g and below) 

Table 4.3 Summary statistics for group 2 (between 40-42g) .............................................................. 23

Table 4.3.1 Correlation table for group 2 (between 40-42g) ............................................................... 24

Table 4.4 summary statistics for group 3 (above 43g) ........................................................................ 25

Table 4.4.1: Correlation table for group 3 (above 43g) ....................................................................... 26

Table 4.5 Summary statistics for Body weight and linear measurement at eight week for all groups

Table 4.5.1: Correlation table for all the groups ................................................................................. 28

CHAPTER 5 ...................................................................................................................................... 29

5.0 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................... 29

5.1 Effect of Day Old Body Weight on Growth Performance on Ross 308 Broilers .......................... 29

5.2 The Correlation between Body Weight and Body Linear Measurements at 8weeks

CHAPTER 6 ...................................................................................................................................... 31

6.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ............................................................................ 31

6.1 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 31

6.2 Recommendations ......................................................................................................................... 31

REFRENCES ...................................................................................................................................... 32