Abstract:
Poultry products are viewed as fundamental food items providing animal
protein at a relatively low cost in Sri Lanka. The demand for chicken meat
and eggs in the country is satisfied through local supply. Kandy district is an
area where poultry farms are run on a large and small scale. Among them
Karandagolla poultry breeder farm is more contributes to poultry production.
On the other hand, if farm conditions are more acceptable can be reached
good poultry performances and production. So, in poultry houses litter is
used to keep the birds comfortable, absorb moisture, remove droppings, and
keep the floor dry enough to provide some insulation underfoot and it also
provides the birds with a suitable environment for feeding watering and other
maintenance. The objectives of the study is to evaluate the performance of
Cobb 500 broiler parent reared under different litter materials and determine
a suitable litter material for Cobb 500 broiler production. The finding of this
study could be useful in choosing the best litter with more performance. The
study used four treatments as different litter materials (wood shavings, rice
husk, sand, and chopped straw) with two replications in each treatment
sample. The study found that the most suitable litter material among the four
types (wood shavings, Rice husk, sand, chopped straw) was rice husk. This
study can be extended to include the economic aspects of the materials in the
future.
