Zambrano et al., 2015. Actas Iberoamericanas de Conservación Animal, 6 : 55-60

The raising of free-range chicken is an alternative to the exploitation of industrial chicken. This research aimed at evaluating the inclusion of levels of flours of Kudzu and Mulberry leaves in diets for free-range chicken. We applied a fix factorial AXB+1, as a factor to forage, factor B, two levels of inclusion more a commercial balanced witness and four replications, in a completely randomized (DCA) design. 160 1 day-old chicken, with a weight of 42 g were used. Data collection was carried out in two different periods (28 and 56 days). Multiple range test was applied to differences between means of Tukey (P5 <0.05). We evaluated the consumption of food, weight gain, feed conversion and carcass performance. Profitability was determined through the benefit / cost relationship.
Mulberry was peaking with respect to Kudzu to 56 days and total (185.18 and 154.09 g animal^-1 day^-1, respectively); however the latter reported the highest average in performance to the channel (81.59%). Morera and Kudzu (10%) levels increased food intake (92.72 g animal^-1 day^-1) and yield to the channel (82.34%) respectively. Benefit cost obtained the best value level (10%) of Mulberry with 0.72 USD. In this study it is concluded that the use of Mulberry in free-range chicken evidence better economic performance of poultry meat.