Performances of Merawang-Chicken with Manipulation of Feed Containing Omcga-3 Fatty Acid Supplement and Differentı Frequency of Feeding

Abstract

Merawang chicken is one kind of local birds that has been domesticated at Mcrawang village, Bangka Island. It has good potential in egg production, therefore it could be devdoped as layer. The.aim of the research was to investigate the performances of Merawang chicken with manipulation of feed containing supplement ofomega-3 fatty acid and different frequency of feeding. The research used 64 Merawang hens, .26-28 weeks old They were arranged in four treatments with four replicates which each replicate had four hens. Housing of them had size 0.7 J< 1 xl m, Feed place was banging feed place with diametre 28.<::m and height 5 em. Randomized Completely Factorial Design 2x2 was used inthis research, Factor A was kind of feed (feed without or with addition of5% omega"3 supplement) and factor B was frequency of feeding management (once and twice per day). The feed was isocaloric (2,510 kcal/kg) and isoprotein (I5.S1%). Parameters observed were feed and water consumption, egg production, egg weight, feed conversion ratio anu mortality. The data collected were analyzed by GLM of SAS computer program. TI,e body weight of Merawang chicken in first week (6-7 months old) was 1377.58 g/ bird and the body weight in last week (9-9.5 months oid) was 1455.85 g/bird. The results showed that no interaction between treatments to feed and water consumption, egg production, egg weight ang feed conversion. Addition of omega-S supplement produced egg weight signifiamdy -CP<0,05) lower than feed control (40.30 vs, 43.98 g/egg). Feeding twice per day produced feed consumption very significantly (p <0,01) higher than consumption on feeding once, per day (96.53 vs, 92S7 g/bird/ day), however it produced higher egg production (39.24 vs, 26.93% hen day} and lower feed conversion ratio (7.33 vs, 10.37).