<b>Tomato meal (<em>Lycopersicum esculentum</em> Mill.) in the diet of laying hens</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascianimsci.v29i4.997

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of different inclusion levels of tomato meal (TM) on performance and egg quality. Two hundred Dekalb White birds, 30 weeks old, were allocated in cages during three periods of 21 days each. The experimental design was completely randomized, with five treatments and five repetitions of eight birds each. The treatments were: a control diet, and four diets with different inclusion levels of TM (5, 10, 15 and 20%). The birds’ feed consumption increased as the inclusion level of tomato meal in the diet was raised. For egg production, egg mass, feed conversion per mass and dozen of eggs, the level of 5% was the best. TM inclusion caused reduction on yolk weight and yolk percentage, with linear effect. However, when 15% TM was included in the diets, the yolks were heavier than those obtained with the control diet. The results obtained in this work suggest that the inclusion of 5% TM can be implemented for better performance results. When 15% TM was used, there was no effect on the yield of egg parts.