Growth performance and digestive tract development of indigenous scavenging chickens under village management

dc.contributor.authorRaphulu, Thomas
dc.contributor.authorJansen van Rensburg, Christine
dc.date.accessioned2018-12-07T06:23:49Z
dc.date.available2018-12-07T06:23:49Z
dc.date.issued2018-06-27
dc.description.abstractThe study was conducted on indigenous scavenging chickens under village management firstly, to evaluate the early development of the digestive tract to 28 days of age and secondly, to determine the growth performance of these chickens up to 20 weeks of age. One hundred and seventeen chicks, 13 chicks per age class (day 1, 4, 7, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, 28) were randomly purchased from six rural villages in the Vhembe District, Venda, South Africa. The chickens were weighed and sacrificed for measurement of the different parts of its gastrointestinal tract. The liver and pancreas were also weighed. The relative weight of the storage organs and liver peaked at day 4 while that of the small intestine and duodenum peaked at day 10. The relative lengths of the small intestine and jejunum peaked at day 7, duodenum at day 10 and ileum at day 4. Four hundred and forty four (444) chicks from 13 households were recorded at two weekly intervals starting from day old until 20 weeks of age. The mean body weight obtained for males and females were 201.7 and 171.5 g at six weeks of age and 1048.1 and 658.6 g at 20 weeks of age, respectively. The indigenous chickens under village management were characterised by slow digestive tract development, poor growth performance and high mortalities. Further research needs to be conducted to determine the effect of early feed supplementation on the development of the digestive tract and the performance of indigenous chickens under village management.en_ZA
dc.description.departmentAnimal and Wildlife Sciencesen_ZA
dc.description.librarianam2018en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipThe National Research Foundation (NRF)en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.jarts.infoen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationRaphulu, T. & Jansen van Rensburg, C. 2018, 'Growth performance and digestive tract development of indigenous scavenging chickens under village management', Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics, vol. 119, no. 1, pp. 105-111.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn1612-9830 (print)
dc.identifier.issn2363-6033 (online)
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/68054
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherKassel University Pressen_ZA
dc.rightsOpen access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).en_ZA
dc.subjectDigestive organsen_ZA
dc.subjectRelative weighten_ZA
dc.subjectRelative lengthen_ZA
dc.subjectGrowth performanceen_ZA
dc.subjectRural communitiesen_ZA
dc.subjectChickensen_ZA
dc.subjectEarly developmenten_ZA
dc.titleGrowth performance and digestive tract development of indigenous scavenging chickens under village managementen_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA

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