Abstract: An experiment was carried out with straight run broiler chicks (lohman) in which diets from 7 to 14 days of age were substituted 0 , 5 , 10 and 15 % sand respectively . Each diet was tested with 4 replicate floor pens each containing 50 chicks. The results indicated that dietary substituted with sand resulted in a significant (p<0.05) reduction in body weight at the age of 14 days . After the return to adlib feeding the birds were able to fully recover body weight depression, the body weight of birds from all restricted group was significantly (p<0.05) higher than that of the control group at the age of 49 days of age. However , there was a numerical but not significant improvement in feed conversion ratio as a result of early feed restriction. Feed restriction had variable effect on carcass composition at 14 and 49 days of age. Similar trend was observed with respect to carcass cuts at 49 days of age. Earlier feed restriction significantly (p<0.05) reduced abdominal fat pad weight compared to that of the control group.