Effects of Feeding Locally Grown Whole Barley on Broiler Performance

Abstract

The experiment was carried out using one hundred and eighty insexed 1 day old (ISA) broiler chicks to evaluate their response to diet with different levels of barley. The diet was made to replace maize with barley at 0%, 25% 50%, 75% and 100% corresponding to rates of incorporation in the feed of 0; 16.2, 32.4, 48.6 and 64.8 % to form treatment diets, T1 (control), T2, T3, and T4 and T5, respectively. This feed of identical formulations, was distributed ad libitum. Treatments were replicated three times with 14 birds per replicate. The experiment lasted for eight weeks. The results showed that the inclusion of barley up to 50% level of the diet showed similar or even better performance to the control diet. However, compared to the other levels, feeding whole barley at 100% level of the diet slowed growth rate at all ages throughout the trial. Consequently, the use of local barley as a sole grain in the ration is not practical.