Zeinab Sleman * (1) Ghassan Yacoub (1) and Ali Nisafi (2)
(1). Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria.
(2). Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria.
(*Corresponding author: Zeinab Sleman, E-Mail: Zeinab.sleman1994@gmail.com).
Received:2/09/2023 Accepted: 27/11/2023
Abstract:
This research was carried out in poultry house of broiler rearing in the Village of Al-Aidiya in Jableh region. To investigate the impact of adding dried Azolla powder to the feed mixtures for broiler chickens, where 120 One-day-old (Ross) breed chicks were used, distributed randomly on 4 treatments using the Completely Randomized Design, and each treatment contained 3 replicates (10 chicks for each replicate). T0 was the control treatment and T1,T2,T3 were the treatments with the addition of dried Azolla powder in proportions(15% and 25%, without addition) respectively in the first age stage, and an addition of (25,35,15%) respectively in the second age stage,(25,60,40%) respectively in the last age stage. The results of the experiment showed that there were no significant differences (P≤0.05) in the average livinge weight (g) of birds between Azolla- containing treatments, and exceeded with very high significance at (P≤0.05) compared to the control. Where T2 (2485) kg recorded the highest living weight in the sixth week compared, with (2165) kg the lowest living weight of the control treatment. The conversion factor outperformed in the sixth week of the t2 treatment reaching (1.55), compared to the control treatment T0 (1.80), and the mortality rate in the Azolla containing treatments was very low compared to the control. In conclusion, adding dried Azolla powder to feed mixtures for broiler chickens has improved production performance compared to the control, especially when 40% and 60% of dried Azolla is added to the feed mixture, and without any adverse effects on the birds. In addition to, agood reduction in feed costs was achieved, amounting to (30%) in treatment T2.
Keywords: Azolla, Broiler chicken, production performance, Unconventional Feed.
full paper in Arabic: pdf