The Impact of Dietary Green Leafy Materials and Vegetable Residues on Performance and Egg Quality of Commercial layers.

Abstract

The present work was aimed to investigate the effect of leafy materials and vegetable residues on performance and egg quality of commercial layers. Six dietary additives were prepared from leafy materials and vegetable residues namely:- carrot (fresh, dried and leaves), onion, alfalfa and jew’s mallow. Each of the prepared six dietary additives were added at 5% level to a basil diet to come up with six dietary treatments plus a control diet. The nutrient content of the formulated dietary treatments and the control diet were based on the NRC (1984) recommendations. With respect of the experimental birds, 84 of 32 weeks old laying pullets of white Hi-sex breed were purchased and evenly distributed (3 pullets/cage) into 28 layer cages. A replicate group of 4 cages that accommodated the birds were randomly assigned to each of the 7 experimental diets and hence the experiment commence. The experiment lasted for 12 weeks during which water and feed were provided adlib and the following measured parameters were determined: body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg production, egg weight, shell thickness, Haugh units and mortality rate. Regarding the obtained results, no significant differences were encountered among the seven dietary treatments for egg production, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, average egg weight and the final live body weight changes throughout the experimental period. Nevertheless, the overall obtained data revealed that leafy materials improved the quality of the produced egg. Fresh carrot and jew’s mallow meal were outweighing in coloring the yolk and significant in shell thickness (P<0.001) as compared with the other experimental diets. On the basis of the demonstrated results, one may conclude that incorporation of the leafy materials and vegetable residues as dietary supplements can improve the performance and egg quality of the commercial layers