Performance and hypo-cholesterolemic response of laying hens fed cassava root sievate - based diets.

Abstract

A total of one hundred and fifty (150) Nera ser-linked layer strains (32 weeks of age) were used to investigate the performance response, blood plasma and egg yolk cholesterol status of hens fed cassava roul sievate (CRS) bused - diets. CRS was used to replace wheat offal at 0, 5, 10, 15 und 20% respectively, resulting in five dietary treatments. Each treatment had 3 replicates with each replicate group having five hirds. The experiment lasted for 10 weeks. No significant effect of diers was noticed in the body weights, weight gain and daily feed intake. Fced conversion per dozen eggs, hen-day egg production and total egg produced significantly declined as CRS levels increased from 0 to 20% in the diets. Diets with 20% CARS had the poorest performance. However, the blood plasma, egg yolk and egg cholesterol concentrations were reduced significantly (p< 0.05) with increased level of CRS Dietary treatment with 20 % CARS had the lowest (P< 0.05) cholesterol concentration. Inclusion of up to 20% CRS led to 35% reduction in plasma total cholesterol, while 18 and 17% reductions were obtained in the egg yolk total cholesterol and total cholesterol per egy respectively. Replacement of up to 10% (w/w) wheat offal by CRS is therefore recommended 10 effectively reduce cholesterol content of the plasma ,egg yolk and whole egg by 20%, 10% and 17 % respectively at performance level that are comparable with that of the control group.