The aim of the study was to propose and test formulae of feeding mixtu
res for the grower period of broilers, in which traditional components
as extracted soybean meal, fish meal, maize and fat were fully or par
tially replaced by rapeseed (RS), rapeseed meal (RSM), peas (P), meat-
bone meal, tallow and wheat. Four mixtures (crude protein 19.5 - 19.6
%, metabolisable energy 11.8 - 12.9 MJ) differing mainly in the conten
t of rape and peas (diet 1: 20 % RS, 7 % RSM; diet 2: 20 % RS; diet 3:
15 % RS; diet 4: 5 % RS, 10 % P) were tested. The experiment was carr
ied out on 3,750 chickens (both sexes) of HYBRO genotype and the same
number of chickens of HBX-3 genotype. They were housed in a windowless
house with controlled environment according to the standard technolog
ical procedure of the International Poultry Random Sample Testing Stat
ion at Ustrasice and tested for a period of 42 days. Within each genot
ype the chickens were divided into five groups: each group was placed
iii three boxes with 250 birds in each (15 birds/m2) . From the 1st to
the 20th day of age all chickens were fed ad libitum with the starter
mash BR1 IT, from the 21st to the 42nd day with grower diets differin
g in their composition (Tab. I). The mixture BR2 IT was used as standa
rd. Live weight at the age of 42 days, mortality, total feed consumpti
on per box, carcass weight, abdominal fat, the weight of breast and le
g muscles and palatability traits were recorded. Traits measured on in
dividuals were analysed according to model (1), traits measured on box
basis were analyzed according to model (2), where y(ijklm) is the val
ue of the m-th individual of the k-th sex housed in the 1-th box recei
ving the j-th diet and belonging to the i-th genotype, y(ijl) is the v
alue of the l-th box where birds from the i-th genotype are housed rec
eiving the j-th diet, mu is the general mean, g(i) is the effect of th
e i-th genotype, v(j) is the effect of the j-th diet, pk is the effect
of the k-th sex, (gv)ij, (gp)ik, (gvp)ijk are the appropriate interac
tion effects, e(ijkbm) and e(ijl) are the residual effects for models
(1) and (2), resp. All calculations were carried out using the procedu
re GLM of SAS(R). For all diets the meat performance of the broilers w
as at a high level at the end of the experiment (live weight 1.80 - 1.
93 kg, feed conversion 2.14 - 2.26, carcass percentage 64.4 - 66.0 %,
abdominal fat content 2.7 - 4.1 %). The mortality, percentage of breas
t and leg muscles and meat quality were not influenced by the diet. Li
ve weight, carcass percentage and percentage of abdominal fat were sig
nificantly decreased when increasing the RS percentage above 15 %. The
feed conversion was significantly worse when the percentage of RS ros
e to 20 %. Using native sources of nutrients may considerably reduce t
he production costs for broiler growing.