The Efficiency of Feed Utilization by Barred Plymouth Rock and Crossbred Broilers

Abstract

APPROXIMATELY 50 percent of the cost of producing and marketing poultry meat consists of feed cost. Consequently, if it were possible to reduce, by any amount, the pounds of feed required to produce a pound of meat, it would increase the profits of the industry. If it were possible to obtain these lower feed costs through breeding it would indeed be worth our efforts. Therefore, a study of the efficiency of feed utilization, on a family basis, becomes an extremely practical as well as an interesting academic problem. Feed efficiency is a very complicated phenomenon affected by many physiological as well as environmental factors. There are at least two definite components, maintenance and growth, which enter into the gross efficiency of feed utilization by broilers. Maintenance requirement probably does not vary greatly per pound of chicken regardless of the weight of the broiler, although such factors as a decrease in . . .