Effect of commercial diets quality on bio-economic performances of broilers in Benin

The objective of this study was to assess the quality of commercial poultry feeds in Benin. The performances of 396 unsexed broilers chickens Ross 308 fed with a control diet (R1) and five commercial diets (R2 to R6) were evaluated. Broilers fed commercial diets showed significantly low (P < 0.001) body weight gain (BWG) and economic feed efficiency (EFE) and significantly high (P < 0.001) mortality rate, feed conversion ratio and feed cost (FC). At 42 days of age, the body weight of broilers fed control diet was 1662 g versus 838 to 1041 g for broilers fed commercial diets. In R1 diet, overall FC was 388 Fcfa/kg BWG, and EFE was 2.7 Fcfa BWG/Fcfa feed. These values represented respectively 50 to 64% and 1.6 to 2.0 times the FC and the EFE recorded in commercial diets. A deficiency in crude protein and metabolisable energy, combined with high contents of crude fibre and total ash was found in some commercial diets. These results suggest the necessity to organize the market of poultry feed in Benin in the perspective to reduce the production cost by using more efficient and cheap commercial diets.