mohammad mehdi shahvand miji

An experiment was conducted in order to study the effects of watermelon rind on performance and biochemical blood indices of broiler chickens. A total of 160 one-day-old Ross 308 male broiler chicks were assigned to 16 pens for 4 experimental treatments, with 4 replications of 10 birds for each replication in a completely randomized design. The experiment consisted of 4 levels of dietary watermelon rinds (0, 1, 5 and 10 %). Dietary watermelon rind of 1% significantly increased mean body weight gain and for all growing periods significantly decreased feed conversion ratio (p>0.01) whereas, above 1% significantly increased feed conversion ratio (p>0.01). The relative weight of breast was significantly increased by 1 and 10% of dietary watermelon rind as it was highest between all treatments (p>0.05). Compared to other treatments, the highest relative weight of thigh was obtained with treatment containing 5%, also, the highest relative weight of pancreas was obtained with treatment containing 1% watermelon rind (p>0.05). The relative weight of abdominal fat and pancreas between treatments were higher for 1% watermelon rind in the diet and the relative weight of abdominal fat and pancreas between treatments were higher for diets containing 1% watermelon rind. The highest relative weight of gizzard, bile and liver were shown for 5 and 10% watermelon rind in the diet (p>0.05). While cholesterol, glucose and HDL were not affected by dietary treatments, ALB, TP and triglyceride were significantly reduced by 10% watermelon rind compared with 1 and 5% watermelon rind in the diet. In general, it was found that the use of watermelon rind up to 10% of the diet had no adverse effect on the performance of broiler chickens.