EFFECT OF SOME NATURAL FEED ADDITIVES TO SUBSTITUTE ANTIBIOTIC AS GROWTH PROMOTERS ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE, CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS AND ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF BROILER CHICKS: 2- BEE-POLLEN

A total number of 150 unsexed 1 day old Cobb broiler chicks up to 35 days of age were randomly divided to 5 dietary treatments with 3 replicate cages per treatment and 10 chicks per cage, assigning experimental until to investigate the effect of either Antibiotic as growth promoter (colistinsulphate) or bee-pollen (natural, growth promoter) on performance, carcass characteristics, carcass parts and economical evaluation in broiler chickens. dietary treatments were: Control, basal diet without supplementation.Basal diet supplemented with 100g colistensulphate/ton, T₁and T_2-4, basal diet supplemented with 500, 1000 and 2000g/ton bee-pollen, respectively. The results indicated that: Supplementation of colistinsulphate (100g/ton, T₁) or bee-pollen (2000g/ton, T₄) recorded significant (P<0.05) higher body weight gain (being the same figure 12%, respectively), than the control group. Supplementation of colistinsulphate or bee-pollen recorded insignificant differences in feed intake, feed conversion ratio or calories and protein conversion ratio compared with that fed control diet, but numerically (T₁ and T₄) represented the best feed conversion (being, 1.67 and 1.65, respectively) compared with that fed control diet (1.83). Carcass characteristics % and carcass parts % showed insignificant figures (except, gizzard, heart, giblets, abdominal fat and wing %) when chicks fed different dietary treatments. Supplementation of colistinsulphate (T₁) or bee-pollen (T_2-4) recorded significant higher performance index being (98.62 to 105.9) compared with that fed control diet (86.21). Concerning economic evaluation, the best economical efficiency values were demonstrated when broiler fed 100g/ton (colistinsulphate) or 500 g/ton (bee-pollen) and the values were 65.3 and 40.8% more, respectively when compared with that of broiler chicks fed control diet. It could be concluded that supplementation basal diet with bee- pollen improved productive performance and enhanced economic efficiency of Cobb broiler chicks.