THE EFFECT OF TOE CLIPPING AND REDUCED FEEDING TIME ON THE PERFORMANCE OF BROILER CHICKENS

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Abstract
An experiment involving 2000 broiler chickens grown to 49 days was designed to measure the performance of birds subjected to detoeing and restricting feeding time to 16 h per day commencing at 21, 28, 35 and 42 days. No beneficial effects resulted from detoeing. Body weights were reduced for males at 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 days; however, these differences were significant (P < 0.05) only at 21, 28 and 35 days. Female body weights were reduced (P < 0.01) only at 21 days. Detoeing had no significant effect (P = 0.05) on carcass grades, mortality, or monetary returns. Although feed conversion up to 21 days tended to be enhanced, this advantage did not persist to 49 days. Reducing feeding time to 16 h/day had no significant (P = 0.05) effect on mortality, body weights, feed conversion, percent Grade A carcasses or monetary returns. Key words: Broiler chickens, toe clipping, feed restriction, feed denial

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