Melkamu Bezabih Yitbarek
This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of feeding dried tomato pomace (DTP) with commercial ration on the performance of Rhode Island Red (RIR) grower chicks. A total of one hundred RIR grower chicks at eight weeks of age were grouped into 20 pens of 5 chicks each, and randomly assigned to five treatments (control; 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 higher dry matter 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 to 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. 20% DTP brought the highest economic efficiency among the groups. Based on this, 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.
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