Some egg quality indices of laying hens fed varying levels of bambara nut sievate

Abstract

The study conducted to determine egg quality indices of laying hens fed varying levels of Bambara nut sievate (BNS) at 0%, 5%, 15% and 20%, 360 points of lay Isa brown pullets were used in a completely randomized design. The birds were randomly allotted to four treatment groups with 90 birds in each treatment denoted as T₁, T₂, T_3­ and T₄ which represented inclusion levels of 0%, 5%, 15% and 20% respectively. Each treatment was further replicated 3 times. The experiment lasted for twelve weeks starting from the point of 40% hen day production. Egg indices were determined every other week from fresh eggs collected. With the exception of eggshell weight, Albumen length and Haugh unit which were statistically different (p<0.05), all the other indices determined including egg weight, egg length, egg width, eggshell percentage, eggshell thickness, albumen height, albumen width, yolk heights, and yolk width were statistically similar (p>0.05). Results showed that egg indices measured did not maintain any particular trend as the inclusion level of BNS increased from T₁ to T₄ and inclusion of BNS in the diets of layers did not impact negatively on the quality of tested hens’ eggs.