The effect of severity and duration of early feed restriction on body weight and abdominal fat of male broiler chickens

Early feed restriction programs designed for reducing body fat in broiler chickens rely on the phenomenon called compensatory growth to produce final body weight equal to controls and success of each feed restriction program is measured based on complete compensatory growth and the amount of body fat. Compensatory growth is defined as a recovery from a growth deficit resulting from a limited nutrient intake. Plavnik and co-workers in a series of studies showed that restricting metabolisable energy intake to providing only maintenance requirement for a short period early in the life of broilers resulted to a reduction in carcass and abdominal fats without affecting overall growth until 56 day of age. This means that there is potential to underfeed broilers for some time, without affecting weight at normal market age. The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of severity of diet dilution (energy and protein) and duration of early feed restriction on body weight and abdominal fat of male broiler chickens.