Growth Performance, Carcass Traits and Economics of Broiler Chickens as Affected by Dietary Sunflower Meal

Abstract

An experiment was conducted with 120 unsexed one week old broiler (Hubbard) chicks to evaluate the effect of different levels of sunflower seed meal (SFM) on growth performance, carcass traits and economic feasebility in broiler chickens. The experimental diets consisted of four levels of SFM: 0% (control), 25, 50 and 75% instead of soybean meal (SBM) in a completely randomized design. Each dietary treatment was assigned to five replicate groups and the experiment lasted 5 weeks (1-6 weeks of age). The obtained results can be summarized as follow: live body weight, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio were significantly (P<0.01) improved with increasing SFM up to 50% substitution for SBM in broiler diets throughout the growing period. Carcass traits including, carcass, dressing and giblets percentages were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by feeding on the SFM diets. Economic efficiency during the experiment was improved by 60.31, 74.60 and 44.44% for diets containing 25, 50 and 75% SFM, respectively as compared with control diet. It could be concluded that increasing SFM inclusion level in the diet up to 50% replacing SBM improved the growth performance, feed utilization and economics of broiler chickens.