Effect of Boiling Time on the Utilization of Cocoa Bean Shell in Laying Hen Feeds

Abstract

2 Abstract: Efficient utilization of cocoa by-products has been identified as one of the means of ensuring the sustainability of the cocoa economy. A series of studies was started in 2000 with the aim of findin g commercial usage for cocoa bean shell (CBS) in poultry (layer) diets. In the first trial, CBS was fed raw at graded levels (0, 10, 20, 30 and 40%) of maize replacement in layers mash. Suffice it to mention that maize constitutes > 50% of most layer feeds. The 10% diet was significantly better (P<0.05) utilized than others. The second study assessed variously treated CBS at the 10% level. The boiled and urea-treated CBS based rations were better (P<0.05) utilized than others. The third trial, which used 20% dietary maize replacement by CBS, established the boiled (30-minutes) CBS to be superior (P<0.05) to the urea-treated. The present investigation assessed the optimal boiling time for CBS among durations of 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 10-week experiment used one hundred and sixty-eight 32-weeks old laying hens. These were randomly allotted to the 7 treatments, which included 0% CBS diet, a commercial diet and an untreated CBS diet. The rest diets contained CBS boiled for 15, 20, 45 and 60 minutes. Maize was replaced at 20% level in the control mash in all the CBS based mashes. Among the CBS diets, only the 15-minutes boiled batch supported similar egg production and feed conversion as the Control diet. Feed intake and egg quality parameters were equal across treatments. Feed cost/kg egg was least on the 15-minutes boiled CBS diet.The results of this experiment indicated very strongly that the 15-minutes boiling duration is the best for optimal and profitable utilization of CBS in layers mash.