Strategies of whey feeding and its effect on performance of Sonali Chicken

The study aimed to evaluate the effect of whey supplemented in mixed feed diet on growth performance, carcass quality and meat characteristics as well as hematological parameters of growing Sonali chicken. Three hundred sixty, day-old Sonali chicks were procured from government poultry development and breeding farm, Sylhet. They were randomly divided into four dietary treatments (T0 - control group; T1 - whey with drinking water; T2 -whey fermented feed and T3 - commercial feed) with three replications in each group (n=30X3) and reared for 8 weeks. Feed intake was recorded on regular basis and growth performance (g) was observed fortnightly. The result showed that oral feeding of whey reduced feed intake but increased dressing percentage (63.4%) and weight gain (424.73±2.23) than that of other groups with significance (p<0.05), lead to better FCR in T1 (2.69±0.03) group followed by T0 (2.79±0.03), T2 (2.94±0.03), T3 (2.97±0.03) respectively. Similarly, CP, CF, TA, EE and NFE content (%) of different meat cuts were varied significantly (p=0.001) with highest DM% in T2 (28.70±0.75) thigh meat, reflect better total yield of CP% in meat than other groups while hematological parameters showed no variation containing good count of RBC (2.97±0.04) and WBC (2.22±0.04) within standard range in T1 group which implied good immunity and health condition in the chickens. In general, addition of whey in water showed better FCR to quality meat yield and it can be concluded that incorporation of whey through oral administration seems better than whey fermented feed to save time and raise revenue.