RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of broiler performance as affected by physical form of feed are shown in Table 4 and Figure
1. Feed Intake was not significantly (P>0.05) affected by physical type of feed. However, Broilers fed
mash diet had numerically increased feed intake compared with birds fed mash + pellet or pellet. This
agreed with [18] who owed the increased feed intake to excessive feed wastage. These results were in
disagreement with [16] and [10], who found that feed intake, weight gain, and final body weight
increased, whereas feed conversion decreased among birds fed pellets compared with mash and 50:50
reground mash and pellets. This observation suggests that high pellet quality may be necessary to fully
Ahmed and Abbas
BEPLS Vol 2 [2] January 2013 ~ 32 ~ © AELS, INDIA
obtain benefits of pelleting. For the current study, the poor performance of birds fed pellets feed may be
due to low quality of pellets. For instance crumble-pellet form with 3200 Kcal/Kg and 23% protein had
the highest weight gain and the best FCR [13]. In addition, vitamins are susceptible to damage during
thermo-mechanical processing. Vitamin A loss has been suggested to increase with pelleting due to high
pressure created in the die [12]. Furthermore, [3] found that growth performance decreased with a
steam conditioning temperature of 900C, whereas conditioning at 700C was shown to increase
performance.
Mean values of carcass characteristics as affected by physical form of the diet are shown in Table 5. All
carcass parameters except for relative weight of gizzard were not significantly (p>0.05) influenced by
the form of the diet. This was in a disagreement with [19] who found that the weight of breast, thigh,
abdominal fat, heart was significantly (P