This research was conducted to study the effect of using sugar beet pulp (SBP) in the diets of Gimmizah chicks and its effect on the chicks performance of during the period from three to eight weeks of age. A total numbers of 400 one-day old unsexed Gimmizah chickens were firstly fed a control diet for two weeks. At same age, birds were equally divided into five treatments (80 birds each), each treatment were subdivided into four replicates (20 birds each). The treatments consisted of five levels of SBP (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% of the diet), chicks were fed starter diets from the beginning of the third (3rd) week up to 8 weeks.
Chicks fed diet containing 0% SBP had higher (P0.001) live body weight (LBW), body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), growth rate (GR) and performance index (PI) during the period from 3-8 weeks. Inclusion of 5% SBP in the Gimmizah diets recorded better values (P0.001) of feed conversion ratio (FC), crude protein conversion (CPC) and caloric conversion ratio (CCR) during the period from 3 to 8 weeks (differences between 0, 5, 10 and 15% SBP were not significant). While, those fed 20% SBP in the diet had the lower values of LBW, BWG, FI, GR, PI and the worst values of FC, CPC and CCR during the same period. Chicks fed diet containing 5% SBP had the best values of economical and relative efficiency, while, those fed 20% SBP had the lowest values.
The obtained results show that the SBP could be used at a rate of 5% in the starter (from 3 to 8 weeks) diets of Gimmizah without any adverse effects on the chicks performance. But, the inclusion of SBP at 20% in the diet resulted in poor performance.