author(s)
VN Gupta, PS Pramanik, KD Singh, S Gautam, P Gautam, B Singh, G Pandey and D Nandan

abstract
Two hundred forty day old Vencobb 400 straight run commercial broiler chicks were randomly divided into three groups with two replicates of 40 chicks in each to assess the effect of different litter materials on growth performance of broiler chickens. The broiler chicks were kept on rice husk, 50 % rice husk + 50 % paddy straw and wood saving in Tc, T_MIX and T_WS groups, respectively for a period of 42 days. The results of the experiment showed that broiler chicks kept under T_mix (3027.20^b±80.50g) i.e. combinations of paddy straw with rice hulls were heavier as compared to the other litter treatments. The overall body weight gain was numerically higher in T_mix as compared to the other litter treatments. It was also evident that feed intake was higher in T_c groups as compared to T_MIX and T_WS groups. The overall FCR was superior in T_mix group (1.84^a±0.21) as compare to other group T_ws (2.22^ab±0.15) and T_c (2.42±0.11). The results of the present experiment concluded that the growth performance indicated that final body weight, body weight gain, FCR were better in T_mix group than wood saving and the control group broiler birds however, feed intake was higher in T_c group.