RESPONSE OF BROILER CHICKS TO DIETS CONTAINING HOT PEPPER AS NATURAL FEED ADDITIVE

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of feeding broiler chicks on diets containing different levels of red hot pepper as natural feed additives on productive performance, dressing percentage and economical efficiency. Total number of 128 week old unsexed broiler chicks of Cob avin 43 strain were divided into four experimental groups of approximately similar body weight. Each group consisted of four replicates of eight birds each. The birds fed basal diet A (control) or basal diet supplemented with 1, 1.5 and 2% levels of red hot pepper for group A, B, C, respectively. The basal diet was formulated according to NRC (1994). Health of the stock, and performance parameters were recorded measures of dressing percentage and financial evaluation were monitories. The result indicated that the body weight gain, feed intake, feed efficiency, mortality rate and dressing percentage of the broiler chicks were not affected significantly by the addition of the red hot pepper as natural feed additives. The group of the chicks feed on 1% red hot pepper yielded the highest net profit compare to other tested groups.