Abstract:
Remarkable improvements in broiler management
made its meat available at low cost. To what
extent management practices are adopted by local
farmers and their effects on broiler production
performance are not well documented in the Sri
Lankan context. Hence, the present study
investigated the effects of management factors on
broiler production. One hundred broiler farmers,
selected randomly from the areas in Kurunegala
district, filled the structured questionnaire with
face-to-face interviews. The data was analyzed
with Excel and SPSS. The results showed that 74%
of the farmers reared 1000 – 3000 birds, 88% of
them fed pre-starter feed to birds below 10 days
old, 94% fed starter feed from 10 – 20 days and
94% fed finisher to the birds above 20 days.
Further, 77% of the farmers did not change the
litter throughout the rearing cycle, 76% of them
provided vaccine to birds, 96% were able to
diagnose diseases, 96% used Baycox to treat
disease and 40% provided supplements to their
birds. 98% of the farmers sold live birds at 2kg
and above 2kg body weight at the maximum of 42
days. The linear regression analysis showed that
vaccination, experience of farmers, number of
birds, not changing the litter, amount of starter
feed, feeding days of pre-starter, feeding days of
finisher, disease diagnosis and supplement can
affect the body weight of the broiler and these
factors together explain 68.1% of the variation in
slaughter body weight. The study concludes that
the slaughter weight of broiler chickens are
affected by several rearing practices, thus, it is
suggested the farmers may focus on feeding,
vaccination, disease diagnosis, flock size,
supplementation and litter management to
increase the final slaughter weight of broiler
chickens and production performance.
