Mohamed Elamin AhmedTalha Elsadig Abbas2017-05-242017-05-242017http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/3616Abstract An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary fat source on broiler performance and carcass characteristics. Ninety one day-old unsexed Ross 308 broiler chicks were purchased from a commercial hatchery. Chicks used in this study had uniform initial live body weight (44.31g ±0.90). The chicks were randomly allotted to 9 pens (1mx1m) in groups of 10 chicks in a pen. The chicks were divided into three dietary treatments; each group was replicated three times. The birds were fed on starter and finisher experimental diets containing vegetable oil (A), hydrogenated vegetable oil (B) and beef tallow (C). At the end of the experiment (42 days), 2 birds per replicate were randomly selected for carcass characteristics and internal organs evaluation. The results revealed that different sources of fat had no significant (p≥0.05) effect on live performance parameters during different growth phases. However, body weight gain during starter phase (0-3 weeks), was significantly (p≤0.05) higher for birds fed dietary hydrogenated vegetable oil and beef tallow versus those fed vegetable oil. During the finisher phase (4-6 weeks), broilers fed hydrogenated vegetable oil grew faster by 13.9 and 12.0% versus those fed vegetable oil and beef tallow, respectively. In addition, FCR and PER of broilers fed dietary hydrogenated vegetable oil were improved by 12.3 and 12.4%, respectively as compared with those on dietary beef tallow.