Feeding of decorticated cottonseed meal on performance of growth rate, carcass characters and cost effectiveness in broiler birds

A six weeks trial was carried out to study the effect of feeding cottonseed meal (CSM) with 432, day - old Cobb 400 broiler chicks distributed to nine experimental diets with six replicates, each containing eight chicks. The experimental diets were formulated based on total amino acids (TAA) or based on digestible amino acids (DAA) with or without iron supplementation with two levels of CSM (2 and 4%) and control diet based on maize – soyabean. Birds fed with CSM at 4% DAA without iron supplementation had higher body weight gain than the control (1918 vs 1804g). Feed intake and feed efficiency were comparable in birds fed with different experimental diets. Inclusion of CSM up to 4% TAA or DAA with or without iron supplementation had comparable dressing percentage, gizzard, giblet (% of live body weight) and spleen (g). The liver weight (% of live weight) was lower in birds fed 4% CSM - TAA and 2 or 4% CSM - DAA with or without iron supplementation (1.45 – 1.53 vs 1.65%). Heart weight was higher (0.91 vs 0.80% of live weight) and abdominal fat (15.42 vs 24.0g) was lowered in 4% CSM - DAA with iron supplementation. The cost of feed/kg live weight gain in the diet of 4% CSM - DAA was lowest (52.77), followed by 4% CSM - TAA (55.43) and the difference with control was Rs 5.43 and Rs 2.77 respectively. The overall performance based on body weight gain, feed intake and feed efficiency was better in the diet formulated with 4% level of CSM - DAA.