Spoilage of water and watery droppings are major factors responsible for the accumulation of excessive moisture in the poultry houses. This moisture will be deposited into the litter. Resultantly the litter becomes too wet, which in turn creates managemental problems and economic losses to the industry. Watery droppings are produced, when birds consume water beyond their metabolic requirements, because excretion of water with the faeces is almost directly proportional to the intake of water. The present study was designed to overcome this problem by restricting the water to the birds and to investigate its effects on the consistency of droppings, weight, gain, feed consumption, FCR, water intake, water: feed ratio, mortality and haematologi cal parameters.

The experiment was carried out at Poultry Experimental Station, College of Veterinary Sciences, Lahore for a period of 6 weeks i.e. from 30-10-1996 to 10-12-1996. One hundred and eighty, one day old "Hubbard" broiler chicks were randomly divided into 6 groups i.e. A, B, C, D, E and F, comprising 30 chicks in each. Each group was further sub-divided into 3 replicates. These groups were given water in such a way that group NA" was offered full water and the rest of the groups were given 95, 90, 85, 80 and 75% respectively of the requirement. All the groups were reared in battery brooders under optimum environmental and managemental conditions. Same rations (starter and finisher) were fed to them. The source of water was also the same throughout the trial. They were vaccinated according to the recommended standard schedule.

From second week, onwards, moisture contents of the faeces were estimated on weekly basis. It was examined that each increment of water deprivation resulted in drier faeces and lower Water: feed ratio than the control. Statistically differences (P<0.01) of weight gain, moisture contents of the excreta, FCR, water: feed ratio and blood values were recorded among the groups. The best performance was evaluated in group C and the poorest in group F. Waler stresses did not affect mortality, only 3 birds died during the whole study. Feed consumptions was found to be non-significant. Commercially these results will be helpful in controlling watery dropping, without lowering meat production, saving of water, labour and sewerage cost in poultry operations.

CONCLUSION

Excreta moisture can be minimized from 1.6 to 5.2% without affecting production and economics.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is recornmenj, that water consumption can be reduced from 5% to 10% in a relatively cooler environment during starter and finisher phase. Reducting the water intake 15% or more had deleterious effect on the performance of broilers.