Effect of Feeding Different Levels of Dried Tomato Pomace on the Performance of Rhode Island Red Grower Chicks in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia

摘要

This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of Dried Tomato Pomace (DTP) in feed intake, body weight gain, Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) and economic efficiency on Rhode Island Red (RIR) grower chicks. A total of three hundred RIR grower chicks at eight weeks of age were grouped into 20 pens of 15 chicks each and randomly assigned to five treatments (control fed a commercial ration; 5% DTP; 10% DTP; 15% DTP; 20% DTP) according to a completely randomized design(RCD). Birds fed on 5, 10, 15 and 20% DTP had the higher Dry Matter (DM) intake(72.93,72.75, 72.98 and 73.15 g/bird/day) than the control group (72.10 g/bird/day). The daily body weight gain of birds ranged from 13.3-15.3 g/day, the highest being on birds fed on 5% DTP; The Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) of birds were 5.3, 4.8, 5.0, 5.3 and 5.5 for the control and for birds that consumed 5, 10, 15 and 20% DTP, respectively, with significant difference observed between 5 and 20% DTP. The economic efficiency of the experimental diets was 1.35, 1.79, 1.80, 1.78 and 1.82 for a group fed on the control, 5, 10, 15 and 20% DTP, respectively. There was a higher significant (p<0.05) difference on a group fed on DTP and the control diet. DTP which contains 20% brought the highest economic efficiency among the groups. Based on the obtained results it could be concluded that dried tomato pomace could be incorporated in grower chick rations at the level of 20% without any adverse effect on growth performance in order to increase the economic efficiency.