Comparison of Meat and Bone Meal and Soya Bean Meal Diets in Egg Production.

Abstract

An experiment was conducted for 13 28-day periods to evaluate me nutritive value of meat and bone meal. A total of 288 21-week-old "Shaver - 288" pullets were randomly distributed into four dietary treatments. Each treatment was replicated six times with 12 pullets per treatment. Diets were formulated to provide 16 and 12% protein levels, based on either soya bean meal or meat and bone meal, with yellow-corn as the major source~ of energy. The parameters measured were: hen day egg production, teed consumption and feed efficiency, egg weight, mortality, Haugh units, egg shell thickness and final body weight. The data indicated significantly (P ~ 0.05) better performance of birds fed soya bean meal diets in comparison to those fed meat and bone meal diet’s III all parameters measured, except Haugh unit values, mortality and final body weight. These results show that meat and bone meal could be used beyond 5-10 % inclusion rate in rations for egg-laying hens, though 11 IS a poor source of protein compared to soya bean meal.