Effects of Separate Sex Growing on Performance and Metaboli c Disorders of Broil ers

Abstract

A study was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University Poultry Farm in order to explore the effects of separate sex rearing of broiler on production performance and the occurrence of metabolic diseases. A total of 405 Cobb500 birds were divided in 3 treatments (male, female and unsexed) according to their sex with 3 replications in each treatment where each replication had 45 birds. They were provided the same feed and water adlibitum for 28 days. Initial body weight, temperature, humidity, feed intake, weekly body weight, death record, final live weight and dressing percent of broiler were recorded. Abdominal fat, liver, heart, kidney, spleen etc. were collected and weighed from the birds to correlate to the occurrence of metabolic disorders. The study revealed that male birds consumed more feed and produced higher body weight. The FCR (1.45) in male birds differed significantly than that (1.61) in female birds and also showed better dressing percentage (71.21%) than in female group (69.67%) or unsexed group (70.08%). Abdominal fat deposition was higher in female (20.35 ±1.94 gm) in comparison to those in male (16.45 ±1.50 gm) or unsexed (18.48 ±2.04 gm) birds. Abdominal fat deposition was highly correlated (r = 0.83) to fatty liver diseases in female birds in comparison to that of male (r=0.42). Mortality rate was higher in female birds (2.2%) than that in male (1.4%). All these findings together revealed that in separate sex growing male chicken showed better performance in terms of more production and less vulnerability to metabolic diseases.