• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.53-56
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• 2007

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of ME and crude protein (CP) content of diet on the performance and production cost of white semibroiler chickens. Three hundred sixty hatched white semibroiler chickens (Hy-Line $female\;{\times}\;Ross^{(R)}$ male) were assigned to low dietary treatments of different metabolizable energy (ME) value and crude protein (CP) content: T1; ME 3,040 and 3,070 kcal/kg, CP 21.40 and 20.86%, T2; ME 2,950 and 3,000 kcal/kg, CP 20.62 and 19.70%, T3; ME 2,950 and 3,000 kcal/kg, CP 19.90 and 18.70% and T4; ME 2,900 and 2,920 kcal/kg, CP 18.50 and 18.00% for starter diet ($0{\sim}1st$ wk) and power diet ($2{\sim}5th$ wk), respectively There were significant (P<0.01) differences among treatments in weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio. T1 was significantly higher in weight gain and feed intake and love. in feed conversion ratio than other treatments. Production index of T1 (153.42) was far greater than T2 (112.13), T3 (108.40) and T4 (100.95). It was concluded that semibroilers required similar ME and CP to those of regular commercial broilers (highbro).