Evaluation Of The Performance Of Broiler Chicks Raised On Different Litter Materials:- Uka, Patience N

ABSTRACTThe study was carried out to evaluate the effects of different litter materials on growth, faecal oocyst count, environmental and haematological variables of broiler chicks. Ninety (90) day old broiler chicks were used fbr the study which lasted fbr eight weeks. The chicks were acclimatized fbr one week after which they were randomly distributed to five treatments of 18 birds each with each treatment replicated into three of 6 birds per replication. The treatments were five different litter materials: wood shaving (Tl), palm kernel shell (T2), palm fruit fiber (T3),Some environmental variables namely, ambient temperature, litter temperature, and humidity; as well as feed and water intakes were measured daily for 8 weeks while body weight was measured weekly. At the end of the experiment, blood samples were collected from the different treatments fbr heamatological indices. Results revealed that birds reared on palm firuit fiber compared favorably with those on wood shaving in their body weight values. There were no significant differences (p<0.05) in the feed and water intakes of birds belonging to the different treatments at the brooding phase, but at the finishing phase, birds reared on palm fruit fiber, palm kernel shell and dry loamy soil had significantly (p<0.05) higher feed and water intakes than those raised on other litter materials. No significant differences were observed in the environmental variables. In the heamatological indices, birds raised on palm fruit fiber and dry loamy soil had significantly (p<0.05) higher heamoglobin content, wood shaving, palm fru