Saifaddin A. Zangana(1) and Shekhmous H. Hussen*(1)
(1). Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Duhok University, Iraq.
(*Correspondence author: Dr. Shekhmous Hussen. E-Mail: sheikhmous68@gmail.com).
Received: 09/02/2017 Accepted: 08/07/2017
Abstract
A total of 288 pullets, at the age of 18 weeks, were used to investigate the effect of replacement soya bean protein (SP) in ration, with animal protein (AP) on laying eggs performance of pullets up to age 34 weeks, and the economic efficiency. Pullets were distributed randomly to four diet treatments with four replicates. The treatments were, T1: Normal protein sources (AP and SP), it was considered as control; T2: 25% of normal ration replaces with SP source; T3: 50% of normal ration replaces with SP source; and T4: 100% SP (vegetable ration). The results showed that vegetable treatment (100% SP), recorded significantly the lowest values of live body weight (LBW), egg weight (EW), egg number (EN), hen day percentage (HD) and feed conversion ratio (FCR). The economic analysis showed that control treatment surpassed all other treatments.
Key words: Laying hens, Egg production, Vegetable protein.
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