ABSTRACT:

A total of ninety (90) birds were used to evaluate the growth performance and carcass characteristics of three Broiler lines. The experiment was carried out at the University of Abuja teaching and research farm. A total of ninety (90) birds comprising of thirty (30) Cobb, thirty (30) Ross and thirty (30) Abor Acre were used for this study and was divided into three treatments with f ive replicates in a completely randomized design. The experiment lasted for 8 weeks. Data was collected on growth performance and carcass characteristics and the data collected was subjected to one way analysis of variance using SPSS. The data collected on growth performance was weekly body weight (g) which was collected using a sensitive digital scale, while the data collected on carcass was weight of cut up parts, live weights and dressed weights which was done by stunning the bird, cutting its jugular vein, scalding the bird, plucking the bird and then cutting the bird into various parts such as Head, wing, feet, drums, thigh, breast, back, neck and internal organs. The results revealed there was significant (p<0.05) difference in growth performance with the Cobb (1471.38g) having superior performance compared to Ross (1358.48g) and Abor Acre (1117.60g) at eight weeks. The result on carcass characteristics also revealed significant (p<0.05) differences between strains with Cobb having superior live weight. There was significant (p<0.05) difference between strains on the carcass characteristics of the birds with Cobb having the highest live weight (1558.33g) and also recording the highest dressing percentage (92.53%) followed by Ross with a live weight of 1430.00g and Abor Acre weighing 1149.66g, Based on dressing percentages Abor Acre (89.93%) was the second highest after Cobb, followed by Ross (83.10%). The cut off parts percentages of Ross mostly performed better than the other lines in terms of Drums 10.20%, Head 3.40% Wings 5.54%, Breast 19.08%, Thigh 9.15%, Feet 4.32% and Back 15.86%. The Cobb line was second after Ross with dressing percentages of Drums 8.09%, Head 4.99% Wings 4.68%, Breast 17.39%, Thigh 7.82%, Feet 4.31% and Back 13.86% with Abor Acre coming last with Drums 5.61%, Head 3.09% Wings 4.48%, Breast 10.57%, Thigh 5.86%, Feet 4.49% and Back 9.32%. Based on its superior performance, Cobb broiler is recommended to broiler farmers in Nigeria.