Effects of Qualitative Dietary Restriction on Performance, Carcass Characteristics, White Blood Cell Count and Humoral Immune Response of Broiler Chicks

Three hundred and twenty unsexed Ross 308 broiler chicks were distributed between 16 battery pens and each of four experimental dietary treatments were assigned to 4 pens (n=20) to evaluate the effect of dietary energy and protein restriction during early growing period on performance of broiler chicks. In order to formulate restricted diets, 100, 200 and 300 g/kg ground wood charcoal (WC) were added to the basal control diet which formulated based on NRC, 1994 and included 0 g/kg WC. The results indicated that diet restriction decreased BW of chicks as comparing to BW of chicks fed control diet on days 15, 21 and 42 of age (P» 0.05) but there was no significant different between BW of chicks fed control and 10% restricted diet on days 15, 21 and 49. On days 9-15 of age, chicks fed restricted diets did have deceased FI comparing to chicks fed on control diet; however, the difference between control and 10% restricted groups was not significant. There was no significant difference in the overall FCR (9-49 d) between chicks fed the restricted and non-restricted control diet, except for chicks fed on 20% restricted diet that had the highest FCR during the experiment. It was concluded that dietary inclusion of WC up to 10% to restrict broiler diets would not have deleterious effect on performance of broiler chicks with no adverse effect on Ab response against NDV and visceral and carcass measurements.