DOI: 10.36347/sjavs.2019.v06i04.003

Pages: 135–139

Total 192 day-old broiler chicks were used on a completely randomized design in four treatments of deep litter materials namely paddy husk, chopped newspaper, coir dust and sand. This study included four treatments with four replicates, each replicate consisted of 12 birds in each cage and kept up to 42 days of age to compare the growth performance (feed intake, body weight, weight gain, feed conservation ratio, carcass weight, heart weight, gizzard weight, cecum weight, spleen weight, dressing percentage and mortality) of broiler. The moisture content in different types litter materials was significantly (p<0.05) increased weekly and the highest moisture content was recorded in coir dust and lowest values was recorded in sand at 6th weeks age of the litter. The pH content of different litter materials significantly declined from initial values at the end of 6 weeks. The higher value and lower value of pH were observed 2.99 in newspaper and 3.42 in coir dust respectively. Weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion, live body weight of birds were (p<0.05) increased with weekly in all types of litter material but the difference among the treatments was not significant in any of the weeks. Carcass weight and dressing percentage were not (p>0.05) changed in the litter types but weight of heart, cecum, spleen and gizzard were (p<0.05) varied among the litter types. Higher values of weight were recorded in heart, cecum, spleen and gizzard were 8.66 g in newspaper, 9.44g in paddy husk, 3.73 g in coir dust and 39.75g in coir dust respectively. Finally, these results suggest that the coir dust may be best litter over other litter for broiler rearing.