Effect of banana peels as a substitute for white maize grain on laying performances and egg quality of Bovans Brown chickens

ABSTRACT

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of replacing white maize grain (WMG) by dried banana peels (DBP) on egg production and egg quality parameters at Poultry Unit, University of Gondar, Ethiopia. A total of 96 Bovans Brown layers (28 weeks old age and initial average body weight of 1.60 ± 0.15 kg) were allocated into four treatments with two replications and each replication had 12 layers. The white maize grain (WMG) portion of the concentrate mixture was substituted by 0, 6, 12 and 18% of DBP for T₁, T₂, T₃ and T₄ treatments, respectively. Feed intake, egg production, egg weight and egg mass were recorded daily. The feed intake was significantly higher for T₄ (108.2 g) compared to T₁, T₂ and T₃ (101.2, 104.1 and 103 g, respectively) diets. A significant difference (P < 0.05) was found between treatment groups in HDEP where T₁ was higher (48.4%) than T₂ (45.4%), T₃ (44.3%) and T₄ (44.1%). Egg weight and egg mass were higher (P < 0.05) in control diet, while, it was constant as inclusion rate of DBP increased. Most of egg quality parameters showed nonsignificant difference among treatments. However, shell weight, shell thickness and yolk colour were higher in DBP containing diets. Yolk weight was significantly lower in T₁ and T₂ than other treatments. Therefore, DBP could be substituted up to 18% as alternative feedstuffs for laying hens DBP without detrimental effect on performance and egg quality traits.

Keywords:

• Bovans
• Banana peel
• Egg quality
• Maize
• Performance

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

High feed cost, poor quality and low availability of feed resources are root causes for the poor performance of poultry sector Therefore, improvement of poultry production system through introduction of better feeding strategy is very important. Therefore, replacing cereals and expensive and less available agro-industrial by products by unconventional source of raw materials, which are less exploited by man, is one of the solutions to alleviate this situation and contribute to increased supply of animal products. In this context, fruit by products like banana peels as poultry feed is one of the solutions to halt this situation and contribute for increased supply of animal products. Thus, this research was conducted to determine the effect of different levels of inclusion of dried banana peels as a substitute for wheat maize grain on the egg laying performance and egg quality parameters of Bovans Brown chicken.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our heart full acknowledge for University of Gondar and College of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science staffs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Meseret Molla

Meseret Molla is working as lecturer and researcher at University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia. She has conducted various research activities on poultry production and published a number of articles in various peer reviewed journals. Metane Shumye is an instructor at Gondar Polytechnic College, Gondar. He has special interests for working with poultry production. Tadilo Awoke is an instructor at University of Gondar, basically he has conducted a number of researches activities on poultry and fisheries. Yohannes Dagnew is working as instructor and researcher at University of Gondar. He has conducted various researches on animal production and others including animal breeding individually as well as collaboratively.