Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Betaine Hydrochloride on Cost Effectiveness in Broiler Chicken

An in vivo experiment was conducted to determine the effect of dietary supplementation of betaine hydrochloride (betaine HCl) on cost effectiveness in broiler chicken. The study was conducted on Vencobb 400 broiler chicks (192) over a period of six weeks. The chicks were allotted to four groups, with four replications of 12 chicks each, randomly. The four groups were allotted to four dietary regimes and each replicate was randomly assigned to one of the four dietary treatments in this study. The experimental feed was formulated according to BIS (1992) specifications and to the control ration (T1), feed grade betaine HCl at 250, 500, 750 ppm was added respectively to form different rations T2, T3 and T4 for different treatment groups. The birds in each group were maintained on their respective ration throughout the study period. The production cost per kg live weight was highest in group that fed T1 ration (Rs.76.47) and lowest in group that fed ration T4 (Rs.72.20) due to efficient feed conversion ratio. It is concluded that the supplementation of betaine HCl at the rate of 750 ppm to broiler based diet results in economical broiler meat production.