Agris category code : L 51 , Q 04 SKELETAL DEVELOPMENT OF OUTDOOR REARED ZAGORJE TURKEY FED LOWER PROTEIN DIETS
1 Fac. of Agriculture Univ. of Zagreb, Dept. of Animal Science, Svetosimunska c. 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia 2 Fac. of Agriculture Univ. of Zagreb, Dept. of Animal Nutrition and Husbandry, Svetosimunska c. 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia 3 Ministry of Agriculture, Veterinary Directorate, Planinska 2a, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia ABSTRACT The study was carried out on 272 Zagorje turkey chicks to estimate the effect of two different protein levels in diets on growth, bone development and carcass composition at the final age of 24 weeks. Birds of both sexes were divided into two groups: high protein (HP) and low protein group (LP) with 136 animals in each (68 ♂ and 68 ♀). LP group was fed a diet with 4% less crude protein content than the HP group during the first 8 weeks of age, while after this period both group were fed the same diet with access to a fenced pasture of 0.5 ha/group. Higher protein content in early rearing period had a positive effect on final body weight at 24 weeks of age. In the same time, morphometric characteristics of main bones showed that male turkeys of HP group had the most developed skeletal system and consequently the highest carcass weight. The carcass weight in male of HP group was higher than 3.0–3.5 kg as a preferable weight of processed carcasses of Zagorje turkey by Croatian consumers. These suggest that lowering the growth intensity by protein undernutrition during the first 8 weeks could have beneficial effects on carcass market of Zagorje turkey.