Improving Egg Quality in Tropical Environments: Assessing the Maize Meal Replacement by Wheat Bran and Soybean Oil in Laying Hen Diets.

BACKGROUND

The use of wheat bran (WB) in the monogastric animal feed is limited due to its high fibre content and low energy contents.

OBJECTIVES

The current study evaluated the effect of replacing maize meal with WB, in the absence or presence of soybean oil, on egg quality and economic performance indicators.

METHODS

In a completely randomized design, 36 ISA Brown laying hens (age: 40 weeks) were used. The hens were distributed in individual cages (4 individuals/cage; n = 4) and subjected to three treatments: T1 (basal diet), T2 (basal diet with 20% maize meal replaced by WB) and T3 (basal diet with 20% maize meal replaced by 17.5% WB and 2.5% soybean oil). To assess egg quality over an 8-week period, the following parameters were calculated: egg weight, length and width, shell resistance and thickness, shell, yolk and albumen percentage, Haugh unit and yolk colour. For the economic assessment, feeding costs, production cost per egg, production cost per dozen eggs, gross revenue, gross added value, profitability index, contribution margins and break-even point were calculated. The data were subjected to two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Tukey test.

RESULTS

The partial replacement of maize meal with WB, in the absence or presence of soybean oil, showed no differences (p > 0.05) for all evaluated egg quality parameters; however, a significant reduction in gross revenue along with a notable increase in gross added value, profitability index and contribution margin was observed (p < 0.05). Regarding the break-even point, no significant effect was observed (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSION

It was concluded that the addition of soybean oil to diets containing 20% WB was as efficient as the basal diet regarding egg quality, together with an improvement of the economic performance.