author(s)
D Desinguraja, K Shyama and Ally K

abstract
The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation of betaine hydrochloride (betaine HCl) on Carcass characteristic in broiler chicken. The study was carried out for a period of six weeks in Vencobb 400 broiler chicks. One hundred – and – ninety two, day-old commercial broiler chicks were allotted to four groups, with four replications of 12 chicks each, randomly. The four groups were allotted to four dietary regimes and each replicate was randomly assigned to one of the four dietary treatments in this study. The experimental feed was formulated according to BIS (1992) ^[3] specifications and to the control ration (T₁), feed grade betaine HCl at 250, 500, 750 ppm was added respectively to form different rations T_2, T₃ and T₄ for different treatment groups. The carcass characteristics (recorded as percentage of pre-slaughter live weight) viz. eviscerated carcass weight, ready-to-cook yield, giblet weight and abdominal fat weight) of birds were also not affected by any level of supplementation of betaine HCl. The percentage weight of cut up parts and internal organs also did not show any significant difference between groups except in the case of gizzard (P<0.05).