Effects of Sunflower Meal Supplementation as a Complementary Protein Source in the Laying Hen’s Diet on Productive Performance, Egg Quality, and Nutrient Digestibility

Ahmed A. Saleh, Ahmed El-Awady, Khairy Amber, Yahya Z. Eid, Mohammed H. Alzawqari, Shaimaa Selim, Mohamed Mohamed Soliman and Mustafa Shukry
Additional contact information
Ahmed A. Saleh: Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 333516, Egypt
Ahmed El-Awady: Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 333516, Egypt
Khairy Amber: Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 333516, Egypt
Yahya Z. Eid: Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 333516, Egypt
Mohammed H. Alzawqari: Department of Poultry Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 333516, Egypt
Shaimaa Selim: Department of Nutrition and Clinical Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Menoufia University, Shibin El-Kom 32514, Egypt
Mohamed Mohamed Soliman: Clinical Laboratory Sciences Department, Turabah University College, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
Mustafa Shukry: Department of Physiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 33511, Egypt

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: The practical usage of untraditional feedstuffs such as sunflower meal (SFM) in laying hens nutrition in developing countries has received considerable attention. SFM is a by-product of the sunflower oil industry and has been progressively added to bird’s diets. Sunflower meal (SFM) is gaining great interest as a feed ingredient due to its eminent crude protein content, low anti-nutritional compounds, and low price. The current experiment was aimed to assess the production efficiency, egg quality, yolk fatty acids composition, and nutrient digestibility of laying hens fed SFM. A total of 162 Bovans Brown laying hens aged 60 weeks old were randomly allocated using a completely randomized design into three experimental groups of nine replicates each ( n = six/replicate) for eight weeks. The dietary treatments involved a control (basal diet) and two levels of SFM, 50 and 100 g/kg feed. The dietary treatments did not influence live weight gain, feed intake, and egg mass. On one hand, the laying rate was increased; on the other hand, the feed conversion ratio and broken eggs rate of laying hens were decreased ( p < 0.05) by the dietary inclusion of SFM. Dietary treatments had no effect on the egg’s quality characteristics except the yolk color and yolk height were larger ( p = 0.01) for laying hens fed SFM compared with those fed the control. Dietary inclusion of SFM decreased ( p < 0.05) the content of cholesterol in the egg yolk. Still, it increased the yolk contents of vitamin E, calcium, linoleic acid, linolenic acid, and oleic acid ( p < 0.05). Furthermore, the dietary inclusion of SFM increased crude protein and calcium digestibility, but decreased the ether extract digestibility. In conclusion, our results suggested that the dietary inclusion of SFM, up to 100 g/kg at a late phase of laying, could improve the production performance, some of the egg quality traits, and nutrient digestibility while decreasing egg yolk cholesterol.

Keywords: sunflower meal; laying hens; performance; yolk cholesterol; yolk fatty acids; egg quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3557/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3557/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:6:p:3557-:d:522443

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().