The study was conducted to evaluate growth performance, carcass characteristics and economic benefit of koekoek chickens fed different levels of fish meal as replacement to soybean in Bora district of East shoa zone, Ethiopia. Fish offal was collected from Koka reservoir and Ellen Lake and then cooked and sun dried. The treatments contained control (T1), 5% fish meal and 15% soybean meal; T2,10% soybean meal and 10% fish meal T3,5% soybean meal and 15% fish meal T4 no inclusion of soybean meal, to replace soybean in concentrate mixture. One hundred and twenty koekoek chickens were assigned to the dietary treatments in a completely randomized design, two replications each with 15 chickens per replications. The feeding trials lasted for forty eight days. At the ends of the trial 2 chickens (one male and one female) were randomly taken from each replication and slaughtered for carcass analysis. T1 and T2 had higher dry matter and organic matter intake compared with T3 and T4. The lowest metabolizible intake was for T4. T4 had the highest (P<0.001) Ca and P intakes. Average daily gain for T1 was the highest (P<0.001) where as T3 and T4 had the lowest value. Chicks fed on T1 produced higher slaughter weight (p<0.001), drumsticks (p<0.001), thighs (p<0.004), wings (p<0.001), and total carcass weight (p<0.001), total edible component (p<0.001). Dietary treatments did not produce significance difference (p>0.05) on total edible offal and dressing percentage. T1 had significantly (p<0.008) higher cost and lower net income. Inversely, T4 had lower cost and higher net income. Thus, incorporation of fish meal in the ration of grower chicks up to 10% is recommended in terms of performance and profits.
Keywords: Carcass, Feeding, Fish meal,koekoek chicken, carcass characteristics, fish meal, growth performance