This experiment was concucted to investigate the effects of an early skip a day feeding program on broiler chickens. Seven hundred and twenty day old, mixed sex Ross chicks were used in the experiment. The birds were fed with a starter diet (3089 KcalME/Kg and 21.45 % CP) until 7 days of age. At this age, 4 floor pens, each of 30 birds were randomly assigned each to one of 6 dietary treatments. Treatment 1 (control) involved in ad libitum access to feed and the remaining treatments were subjected to a skip a day regimen from 7 to 13 days of age. During the restriction period, the restricted groups had access to water. Starting day 14 to 21, chicks of the 6 treatment groups were fed isocaloric diet containing 20.45, 21.45, 25, 27, or 31 % CP. From 22 to 42 and 43 to 46 day of age all the treatments received commercial grower and finisher mash diet with 3090 KcalME/Kg, 19.32 % CP and 3090 KcalME/Kg, 17.2 % CP, respectively. During the restriction period, weight gain of the restricted group was severly affected (p<0.05). Body weight gain over the 33 days of realimentation, was faster for the 21.45 % Cp treatment that resulted in compensatory growth. As expected, chicks that were subjected to skip a day feeding consumed less feed (p<0.05) compared with the control group. Likewise, their overall feed intakes throughout the experimental period were also less than ad libitum group (p<0.05). The feed conversion ratio of restricted chick was greater during skip a day feeding period than that of control (p<0.05). On the contrary, their feed efficiency was significantly higher (p<0.05) during the refeeding period. Overall feed efficeincy for skip a day group was not statistically different from that in ad libitum group (p>0.05). At the end of study, gasterointestinal tract weights in restricted chicks were not different from those of control (p>0.05). Mortality and leg abnormality in this experiment were negligible, so statistical analysis was not performed on these data.
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