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5374

SEASONAL VARIATION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF BROILER BREEDER CHICKENS REARED IN ENCLOSED HOUSES

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Last updated: 22 Jan 2023

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Abstract

In this field observational study three enclosed broiler breeder houses were selected to evaluate the effects of some environmental factors in different seasons along the year on F15 Hubbard broiler breeder chickens to provide reliable information and practical current knowledge for proper management conditions. Each house contains 4000 birds 25 Wk-old with average initial weight 2.560±50.60 kg, with a total of 12000 birds for three studied houses. Productive performances of flocks were evaluated by measuring egg production, egg weight, feed consumption, feed conversion of eggs and mortality rate. Also, egg quality traits were done for each season alone, while the physiological performance determined by measuring some blood traits. Further, fertility, hatchability and chick quality traits were also evaluated. Ambient temperature (AT, °C), relative humidity (RH, %) and concentrations of ammonia (NH3, ppm), hydrogen sulfide (H2S, ppm), carbon dioxide (CO2, ppm) and dust (mg/m3), air velocity (AV, m/s) and static pressure (SP, Pa) were determined along the different seasons of the year. Results of the present study showed that air quality of breeder houses and either productive or physiological performance were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) affected due to seasonal changes along the year. High concentrations of different gases present in houses in winter season can negatively affect production and health of birds. In spring and summer seasons egg production and FCR were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) the best in comparison to the other different seasons. While, insignificant differences observed in egg weight due to seasonal changes. Mortality rate showed the highest percentage for birds reared in winter compared with the other seasons. In addition, there was evidence of an increased stress response due to elevation of environmental gases in winter and autumn seasons as judged by the increase of hetrophils, lymphocyte and H/L ratio and CS level reflecting the increase of stress due to environmental conditions. However, the levels of T3 and T4 recorded significantly higher (P ≤ 0.05) values for birds kept in winter season compared with the other seasons. Furthermore, egg quality traits had been significantly (P ≤ 0.05) affected due to seasonal changes, where the shell thickness recorded the highest (P ≤0.05) value during autumn and spring, while the lowest recorded for summer and winter seasons.

DOI

10.21608/epsj.2015.5374

Keywords

Environmental factors, housing F15 Hubbard breeder chickens, seasons

Volume

35

Article Issue

4

Related Issue

919

Issue Date

2015-12-01

Receive Date

2018-02-16

Publish Date

2015-12-01

Page Start

833

Page End

856

Print ISSN

1110-5623

Online ISSN

2090-0570

Link

https://epsj.journals.ekb.eg/article_5374.html

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https://epsj.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=5374

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Original Article

Type Code

493

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Poultry Science Journal

Publication Link

https://epsj.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023