ABSTRACT

Eighty four (84) broiler chickens were used to investigate the performance of broiler chickens kept on skip-a-day (SAD) feeding regime. The birds were allocated to four dietary treatments; each treatment was replicated three times with seven (7) birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. Treatment 1 (control) was placed on ad- libitum feeding, treatment 2 was placed on skip-A-day feed restriction for one week, treatment 3 was placed on skip-A-day feed restriction for two weeks and treatment 4 was placed on Skip-A-day feed restriction for three weeks. Water was given adlibitum throughout the experiment. This study lasted for 56 days. There were significant differences (p<O. 05) among the treatment means for weight gain and feed intake/bird/day. The weight gain and feed intake/bird /day favoured birds placed on the control diet (28.33) followed by treatment 2(26.67), treatment 3(24.33) and Treatment 4(22.67). For haematology and serum biochemical parameters, there were significant differences (p<O.05) among treatment means for white blood cells, serum total protein and cholesterol. The blood parameters measured were within the normal range established for boiler chickens except for white blood cells and total protein. For cost analysis, treatment 3 (369.18) and treatment 4(3 66.22) had the least cost of feed consumed making these treatments effective in reducing cost of starter feed. From the above results, skip-a-day (SAD) feeding regime up to 2 weeks significantly increased the body weight gain with evidence of compensatoly gain.