Abstract
This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of replacing soybean meal with hempseed meal in diet on performance, egg quality and blood parameters in laying hens. A total of 200 Hy-line 102 wks laying hens were randomly allotted to 25 cages in 5 dietary treatments with 5 replicates (8 birds each ...
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This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of replacing soybean meal with hempseed meal in diet on performance, egg quality and blood parameters in laying hens. A total of 200 Hy-line 102 wks laying hens were randomly allotted to 25 cages in 5 dietary treatments with 5 replicates (8 birds each replicate). This experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with 5 treatments involved different ratio of soybean meal to hempseed meal protein source including 1) ratio of 100: 0 protein of soybean meal to hempseed meal (control); 2) ratio of 75: 25 protein of soybean meal to hempseed meal; 3) ratio of 50: 50 protein of soybean meal to hempseed meal; 4) ratio of 25: 75 protein of soybean meal to hempseed meal; and 5) ratio of 0: 100 protein of soybean meal to hempseed meal. Egg production, egg mean weight and feed intake in the birds fed diet contained ratio of 0: 100 protein of soybean meal to hempseed meal were higher than control diet (P<0.05). Albumin height (Haugh unit), yolk color index, yolk weight percentage and shell weight percentage were ameliorated when hens fed diets the highest protein ratio of hempseed meal compared with the control group. Using hempseed meal in diets decreased (P<0.05) the cholesterol, triglycerides and lipoprotein with low density as compared with the control group. It can be concluded that replacing of 75 % and 100% of hempseed meal to soybean meal may improve the performance, egg quality of post molting layer and decrease the serum LDL and cholesterol of laying hens.