Effect of Early Feeding with Egg Yolk and Soybean Oil on Performance and Intestinal Morphology of Broiler Chickens

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of egg yolk and soybean oil as early feeding to broiler chicks on growth performance and intestinal morphology. A number of 525 chicks (Ross 308) were allocated to 7 treatments with 5 replicates and 15 birds in each replicate in a completely randomized design. Treatments were: control group (without early feeding), and feeding of 0.4 and 0.8cc of egg yolk, soybean oil and water as force-feeding after incubation. All chickens then were fed with the same rations for 21 days. At the end of the study, two birds of each repilcate were slughtered for jujenum sampling to conduct the mophological trial. Feed intake and weight gain were recorded weekly. Results showed that growth performance of chickens was affected by the treatments only in the first week of rearing (p