Abstract

UZCATEGUI-VARELA, Juan Pablo; COLLAZO-CONTRERAS, Karen Dayana  and  GUILLEN-MOLINA, Edilmer Antonio. Evaluation of the Productive Behavior of Cobb 500 Chickens under Feeding Restrictions as a Nutritional Control Sustainable Strategy. Rev. Med. Vet. [online]. 2019, n.39, pp.85-97. ISSN 0122-9354.  https://doi.org/10.19052/mv.vol1.iss39.9.

A fully random design was used to distribute 200 Cobb 500 chickens. They were one day old, looked healthy and had an average weight of 37.34 ± 0.44 g. It consisted in five groups with four replicas having 10 chickens each. During the 42 experimental days, the birds received a traditional zootechnical management including commercial isoproteic diet (20% raw protein) and an isocaloric diet (3,100 kilocalories (kcal)/kilogram (kg)). On day 15, the herd was subject to a feeding restriction program (PRA) according to these treatments (T): T0 ad libitum consumption of concentrated food (CF) for 24 hours (h), T1 removal of the CF for 12 h (20:00-8:00), T2 removal of AC for 14 h (18:00-8:00), T3 16 h with not access to the CF (16:00-8:00), and T4 lack of AC for 18 h (14:00 y 8:00). After day 30, the birds returned to the free consumption of CF. The total weight gain (TWG), daily weight gain (DWG), food consumption (FC), dietary conversion factor (DCF), channel performance (CP), and mortality (M) were taken as response variables. The statistical analysis showed that the PRA had a significant effect on the (p >0.05) on the production indicators evaluated in T0, T1, T2 and T3. However, the CF was significantly lower (p <0.05) in T3 and T4 as compared to the other treatments. In addition, only T4 showed a lower DCF (p <0.05) as compared to the other treatments. It is concluded that a PRA of 18 hours from 15 to 30 days of age favors the sustainability criteria as it does not impact negatively the bird productivity.

Keywords : compensatory growth; feeding efficiency; broilers; feeding restriction; sustainability.

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