An experimental trial has been conducted on 288 broiler male chicks fed with maize-soybean-fishmeal based diet supplemented with Zinc-sulphate at 0(T1), 20 (T2), 40 (T3), 60 (T4) and 80 (T5) mg/Kg diet and Zinc-methionine (BIOPLEX) at 20 (T6), 40 (T7), 60 (T8), 80 (T9) mg/Kg diet. Each treatment consisted of 4 replicates with 8 birds per replicate. All the birds during the first week were fed with a basal diet without any zinc supplementation to deplete the body zinc reserves. From 1st to 4th week the birds were fed with starter diet containing 23.0% CP, 2877 Kcal of ME/Kg diet and 5th and 6th week the birds were fed with finisher diets containing 20.4% CP, 2943 Kcal of ME/Kg diet. There was no significant difference among different treatments in relation to the body weight gain but there was slight increase in body weight gain in treatments supplemented with zinc when compared to control. The supplementation of zinc in the form of inorganic and organic zinc at 20, 40, 60, 80 ppm levels did not influence much with regard to the feed intake. The feed efficiency for the overall experimental period from (1-6 weeks) ranged between 1.92±0.03 to 1.99±0.06 which is also statistically not significant (P > 0.05). Similarly there was no significant difference in the ready to cook yields and the liver weights among the various treatment levels.
