Performing Department
EXPERIMENT STATION
Non Technical Summary
Guam has minimal local poutry production. The high cost of imported feed is one of the major impediments to the development of a industry on-island. Thias project seeks to develop the technical parameters of local production of brown table eggs, capon and turkeys on Guam using both imported and locally available feedstuffs for econonomic feasibility analysis of local production.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
To examine the costs and returns of producing: 1)brown table eggs, 2) capons and 3)turkeys in small pilot projects for potential adoption by small farmers.
Project Methods
1. Brown table eggs: 150 Gold-link, bown layer chicks will be started on chick starter feed for three weeks, pullet grower feed to 18 weeks of age and layer feed troughout the egg production cycle. Data on feed consumption, body weight, feed conversion , egg productio, egg weight will be collect and analyzed. 2. Capon Production: 150, one day old male broiler chicks will be started in brooder cages and given broiler starter feed for four weeks. The birds will be divided into 3 groups of 50 birds. One treatment will be surgically caponized, the second treatment will recieve estradiol from 4 weeks to 21 weeks of age and the third treatment will serve as a control. All treatments will be feed a diet of 16% protien and 2200 Kcal of metabolizable engery. Luecaena leaf meal will be used at alevel of 5% to reduce energy and increase protien content during the growing phase. The treatment groups will be compared with control with regard to feed consumption, body weight gain
and feed efficiency. 3. Turkey production: %0 day old Nicholas White turkeys will be started in brooder cages and fed a commercial turkey turkey starter diet. After 4 weeks the bird will be divided into to treatment groups. The control will recieve a commercial grower and finisher diet, the treatment group will a feed blended from leucaena leaf meal, copra meal and cassava supplemented with vitamin and mineral mix. Both feeds will have similar energy and protien content. Body weight and feed consumption data will be collected every two weeks.