Commercial Poultry Production and Hatchery Management

RESTRICTED FEEDING

• Parents especially broiler breeder parents have the inherent ability to grow rapidly.
• When full-fed during the growing period they gain excessive weight and mature earlier.
• This will lead to little persistency of peak production and decrease the number of hatching eggs.
• Hence restricted feeding is necessary during growing period.
• This may be practiced either as qualitative or quantitative feed restriction.
• Now-a-days simple quantitative (physical) feed restriction is followed throughout the life of breeder flock as skip-a-day feeding method or controlled every-day feeding method.
• Because different strains of birds have different growth characteristics, the initiation of restricted feeding must be flexible in order to control body weight and hence the quantum of feed required per day is depending upon the recommendations for that particular strain of the breeder.
• It is generally recognised that each commercial strain of bird has an optimum weight at the time of approaching sexual maturity.
• In general, meat type male and female breeders attain the body weight of 3.0 kg and 2.2 kg respectively at 22 weeks of age.
• Whereas, egg type male and female breeders attain the body weight of 1.7 kg and 1.35 kg respectively at 20 weeks of age.
• At onset of sexual maturity, as indicated by a 1% production level, the flock should be changed to a daily feeding schedule.
• When a 5% level of production is attained in broiler breeders, a daily feed allowance of 0.45 kg/100 hens should be provided for each 5% increment in production, over the maintenance feed allotment, until a daily consumption of approximately 15.5 kg / 100 hens is attained.
• This level should be fed when the flock reared in open-sided houses achieves 40% production.
• This quantity is maintained through peak production and for approximately 4 weeks thereafter or until a 2% hen-week drop in production.
• Feed amounts are then reduced by 50-70 g/100hens/week until approximately 13.7 kg/100 hens/day is attained.
• If an abnormally high drop in production occurs following a reduction in feed, the previous quantity should be provided for one week to determine whether additional feed restores production.