article · Sustainability
Sunflower meal, an oil industry by-product, offers a low-cost, protein-rich alternative feed ingredient with minimal anti-nutritional factors. An eight-week study evaluated its effects on 162 Bovans Brown laying hens aged 60 weeks, testing diets containing 50 and 100 grams of sunflower meal per kilogram against a basal control diet. The supplementation did not alter live weight gain, feed intake, or egg mass. However, hens receiving sunflower meal showed higher laying rates, enhanced feed conversion efficiency, and lower broken egg rates. Most egg quality metrics remained unaffected, though yolk colour and yolk height improved. In addition, sunflower meal reduced yolk cholesterol and boosted levels of vitamin E, calcium, and beneficial fatty acids, including linoleic, linolenic, and oleic acids. Crude protein and calcium digestibility improved, whereas ether extract digestibility declined. Feeding sunflower meal up to 100 grams per kilogram enhances performance and yolk nutrition during late laying.
Poultry producers face high feed costs and seek sustainable protein alternatives. By using sunflower meal, a low-cost agricultural by-product, farmers can improve laying hen productivity and reduce egg breakage. The resulting eggs also contain less cholesterol and higher concentrations of beneficial fatty acids, vitamin E, and calcium, presenting a healthier product for consumers while potentially lowering feed expenses.
This research provides applied evidence directly relevant to commercial egg producers and poultry feed manufacturers looking to integrate sunflower meal up to 100 grams per kilogram into late-phase laying hen diets. The approach has been tested in feeding trials, demonstrating immediate utility for commercial feed formulation. It enables feed mills to lower production costs using an industrial by-product while formulating eggs with improved nutritional characteristics.
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The practical usage of untraditional feedstuffs such as sunflower meal (SFM) in laying hens nutrition in developing countries has received considerable attention. SFM is a by-product of the sunflower oil industry and has been progressively added to bird’s diets. Sunflower meal (SFM) is gaining great interest as a feed ingredient due to its eminent crude protein content, low anti-nutritional compounds, and low price. The current experiment was aimed to assess the production efficiency, egg quality, yolk fatty acids composition, and nutrient digestibility of laying hens fed SFM. A total of 162 Bovans Brown laying hens aged 60 weeks old were randomly allocated using a completely randomized design into three experimental groups of nine replicates each (n = six/replicate) for eight weeks. The dietary treatments involved a control (basal diet) and two levels of SFM, 50 and 100 g/kg feed. The dietary treatments did not influence live weight gain, feed intake, and egg mass. On one hand, the laying rate was increased; on the other hand, the feed conversion ratio and broken eggs rate of laying hens were decreased (p < 0.05) by the dietary inclusion of SFM. Dietary treatments had no effect on the egg’s quality characteristics except the yolk color and yolk height were larger (p = 0.01) for laying hens fed SFM compared with those fed the control. Dietary inclusion of SFM decreased (p < 0.05) the content of cholesterol in the egg yolk. Still, it increased the yolk contents of vitamin E, calcium, linoleic acid, linolenic acid, and oleic acid (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the dietary inclusion of SFM increased crude protein and calcium digestibility, but decreased the ether extract digestibility. In conclusion, our results suggested that the dietary inclusion of SFM, up to 100 g/kg at a late phase of laying, could improve the production performance, some of the egg quality traits, and nutrient digestibility while decreasing egg yolk cholesterol.
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DOI: 10.3390/su13063557
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