Abstract

Marshal strain of broiler chicken were used to determine the effect of Ascorbic acid (AA) on the performance and carcass characteristics of broiler birds at starter and finisher phase in Sokoto, Nigeria at different levels of AA inclusion. 225 day-old chicks were housed in a standard open sided tropical house type under deep litter system. The birds were randomly assigned to three treatments (0g, 10g and 20gAA) replicated Five times in completely randomize design (CRD). Feed intake (FI), body weight (BW), body weight gain (BWG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were determined. At the end of the experiment, 15 birds were randomly selected from each treatment, fasted, killed and their carcass weight analyzed. The result showed that there is significance difference P(0.05) between FI and BWG. At finisher phase, the result showed that there is significance difference P(0.05) does not exist between FI and FCR across all the treatments. Birds fed diet with 0g AA performed better compared to other treatments in terms of FCR at finisher phase. While in the finisher phase those fed with 10g AA performed better compared to other treatments on the remaining parameters and also better in FCR at starter phase. Carcass analysis revealed significance difference P