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Effect of total replacement of maize with brewer's spent grain and maize offal on performance of laying hens


GA Anyanwu
MC Uchegbu
WA Gwadia
FO Mpieri
CS Durunna

Abstract



A 56-day feeding trial was conducted to determine the possibility of total replacement of maize component in layer diets with combinations of maize/sorghum-based brewer's dried grains and maize offal using 96 Shika Brown layers, 15 weeks in lay. Four experimental layer diets were formulated to contain maize, brewer's spent grains and maize offal at 50, 0, 0; 0,12.5, 37.5; 0, 25, 25; and 0, 37.5, 12.5 levels for T1 (control) T2. T3 and T4 respectively. Each diet was fed to a group of 24 layer hens already in their 15th week of lay for 56 days. There was no significant (p<0.05) difference among the birds in T1,T2 and T3 with respect to feed intake, hen-day production egg weight and feed conversion ratio. In all these parameters, the control (T1) performed better than T4. In terms of shell thickness, T1, T2, and T3 had similar (p>0.05) values but superior to T4. There was no significant difference observed in all groups in other egg quality characteristics – Haugh unit, albumen index and yolk index.

Keywords: Maize; brewer's spent grain; maize offal; laying hens

International Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences Vol. 2 (3) 2006: pp. 268-271

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eISSN: 0794-4713