Grower Feed in the Starter Phase: A Cost-Effective Approach for Broiler Parent Stock Management

This study objective is to know the effect of grower feed on performance, blood profiles, and income over feed cost (IOFC) in the parent stock chickens during the starter phase. The study methods used 4,800 female day-old chicks and 4,800 male day-old chicks reared under three different treatments with two replications, each treatment replications are using 800 birds, as follows: T0 = Starter feed used; T1 = grower feed with 2 days for male and 3 days for female used and then continued with starter feed; T2 = grower feed with 5 days for male and 6 days for female used and then continued with starter feed. The data were analyzed for normality, followed by a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) factorial analysis. The results showed that production parameters did not differ significantly with the highest IP being 169,68±13,9 in T1 male, leukocyte levels decreased to 114,95±6,3 in T1 male still they remained within the normal range for blood profiles, and income over feed cost increased to Rp 4.403,68 in T1 female. These findings conclude that grower feed can be used for up to six days during the starter phase and produces results comparable to fully used starter feed. Copyright: 2025 by the authors. Licensee ResearchersLinks Ltd, England, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).