Response of finishing broiler chickens fed three energy/protein combinations at fixed E:P ratio

A feeding experiment was conducted to investigate the response of finishing broiler chicken to diets containing three metabolizable energy (ME)/crude protein (CP) combinations ( 3203.76 ME vs 19.90 %CP, 2884.15 ME vs 18.10%CP and 2566.42 ME vs 18.10 %CP) at fixed ME:CP ratio of 160:1. A total of 126 four weeks old broiler chickens were randomly allotted to three dietary treatments replicated thrice. The final live weight, weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion and PER were generally higher in the birds fed the control diet (3203.76 ME vs 19.90 %CP). There were significant (P0.05) across the treatments. Cost per kg feed decreased as the energy and the protein density of the diets decreased while the cost per kg weight gain decreased with increase in energy and protein density. The digestibility percentages showed a decreasing (