Vol. 9, Special Issue 3 (2024)

Author(s): Fardeen Shaikh, YB Kandalkar, VD Borkar, MU Tanpure and SA Dhage

Abstract: An experiment was carried out at the Poultry unit, Veterinary Polyclinic and Artificial Insemination Center, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairy Science, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India during the year 2022-23. In all, 120 day-old chicks were selected for the experiment. The chicks fed with basal diet in control group (T₀), while chicks in treatment T₁, T₂ and T₃ were fed basal diet with tulsi leaf powder @ 1.0, 1.50 and 2.0 per cent each, respectively. The weekly body weight changes of chicks indicated non-significant difference among various treatment groups during first two weeks of the experiment. Whereas, significant difference among the treatments were observed from third week onwards. It was observed that average live body weight of the chicken at the end of 6th week was 1990.18, 2038.42, 2171.99 g and 2078.18 g, respectively. The cumulative feed intake of chicks indicated non-significant difference among various treatment groups during first two weeks of the experiment. However, significant differences among the various treatment groups were reported from third week onwards. The feed conversion ratio in sixth week for different treatments T₀, T₁, T₂ and T₃ was 1.88, 1.91, 1.84 and 1.96, respectively. Statistically better FCR was recorded in T₂ treatment as compared to other treatments.