In order to reduce error in experiments and to be able to observe well the chicks or any group of animal in a treatment under study, there is the need for what is known as REPLICATE.
After brooding the birds for two weeks, their feathers have developed a little and they can regulate their body temperature to some extent themselves. Though we still supply them with heat using 100 watts bulbs, we no longer use coal pot again.
We started the experiment with 306 birds and we have had 3 mortality. Each of the treatments now have 3 replicates each. 10 treatments was what we started with ( five for infusion and 5 for feed mixed with iseregun), now we have replicated each treatment giving us 30 replicates.
While replicating, we took into consideration the number of animals in each treatment and then divided it into three. each division is what is called a replicate and we had to weigh each replicate so as to know compare their body weight to what we will later have after 8 weeks of raising the broiler birds.
Normally, after stressing birds like this, we need to give them glucose which will serve as anti-stress, but on this day, we did not because we want to check for their reaction to the absence of anti-stress at two weeks.
Our expenses now have increased because they now consume more feed and we had to buy more bulbs for the replicates.
This is a report of my project activities for day 15.