Evaluation of egg production and egg quality of Sasso and Kuroiler chickens fed three diets at varying levels of supplementation under a semi-intensive system of production in Tanzania
Y. D. Sanka
A B C , S. H. Mbaga B and S. K. Mutayoba B
A Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, PO Box 2170, Dodoma, Tanzania.
B Department of Animal, Aquaculture and Range Sciences, Sokoine University of Agriculture, PO Box 3004, Morogoro, Tanzania.
C Corresponding author. Email: yeremiads@yahoo.com
Animal Production Science 61(14) 1467-1475 https://doi.org/10.1071/AN20453
Submitted: 8 August 2020 Accepted: 2 April 2021 Published: 13 May 2021
Abstract
Context: Genetically improved chickens raised under a semi-intensive system have been shown to maintain performance in terms of egg production and egg quality by feeding low-cost diets at different levels of supplementation, but reports on the supplementation regimes by using low-cost diets are limited.
Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation regimes on egg production and egg quality of genetically improved dual-purpose chickens under a semi-intensive system.
Methods: A total of 480 female chickens aged 20 weeks were randomly assigned to 24 treatment combinations in a 2 × 3 × 4 factorial experiment with two replicates each. The treatments were breeds (Sasso and Kuroiler), diets (D1 – commercial, D2 – medium-cost and D3 – low-cost) and levels of supplementation (100%, 75%, 50% and 25%).
Key results: The results show that breed, diet and level of dietary supplementation had a significant effect (P < 0.05) on age at first lay and egg production parameters. Sasso chickens showed higher hen-day egg production and hen housed egg production values across all diets and levels of supplementation. Diet and levels of feed supplementation significantly affected egg weight (P < 0.05), with 100% supplementation level resulting in the heaviest eggs and 25% supplementation level resulting in the lightest eggs. All internal egg qualities except Haugh units were significantly (P < 0.05) influenced by the level of supplementation, whereas the effect of diets was only significant (P < 0.05) for a few internal egg quality variables, such as yolk weight and yolk diameter. The cost of production was higher for commercial diet-fed and highly supplemented birds.
Conclusion: Egg productivity and egg quality traits were significantly improved by breed, diet and higher levels of supplementation. However, less-supplemented (25% and 50%) birds gave numerically higher income over feed compared with those on higher levels of supplementations for the first 20 weeks of production.
Implication: These findings have the potential to reduce the cost of egg production for dual-purpose improved chicken breeds while maintaining good egg quality under a semi-intensive system of production.
Keywords: egg production, egg quality, dual-purpose breed, low-cost diet, supplementation.
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