Roasted Pigeon Pea Meal Replacement to Soybean Meal and Its Effect on External and Internal Egg Quality Parameters of Bovans Brown Layers

Aims: The study aims to determine whether layer hens could substitute their soybean meal with roasted pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) seed meal.

Study Design: Five treatments and three replications in a complete randomized design (CRD)

Place and Duration of the Study: The study was conducted in Ethiopia's northwest Tigray, in the Shire Enda lassie district.

Methodology: The experimental diets were designed to have the same calorie and nitrogen content. A group of 105 commercial Bovans Brown (BB) egg-laying hens, 6 months old with an average body weight of (1412.04g ± 71.095g), were utilized for 90 days with a 10-day adaptation period. In the rations for T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5, soybean meal was replaced by pigeon pea seed meal at the amounts of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% respectively. These treatment diets contained a metabolized energy range of 2882.28 - 2899.53 kcal/kg dry matter and 16.63 – 16.92% crude protein content. Data analysis was performed using the general linear model (GLM) of the SAS software.

Results: The results of egg quality parameters did not exhibit any significant (p>0.05) variation between the treatments. The average result of the experiment was egg weight 58.34 - 59.04 grams, shell weight 5.49 - 5.78g, and egg shape index 71.70 ± 3.6. Similarly, the range of albumin weight, albumin height and yolk weight in the experiment was 34.62 - 35.14g, 7.72 - 8.06 mm and 15.2 - 15.9g, respectively. The yolk colour result using roch yolk colour fun was in the range of 4.96 - 5.07 which indicates a normal result.

Conclusion: According to the findings, roasted Pigeon pea seed meal could be replaced up to 75% of Soybean meal in the layer's diet without an adverse effect on the parameters of internal and external egg quality.