A COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT SORGHUM VARIETIES WITH MAIZE AS ENERGY SOURCE ON WHITE LEGHORN LAYER PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMIC RETURNS

Abstract

The study was conducted to evaluate Comparison of sorghum varieties as asubstitute to maize on feed intake, effciency,egg production, egg quality, fertility,hatchability, embryonic mortality,chick quality, and economic return of White leghorn (WLH) chicken at Poultry Farm of Haramaya University. One hundred fifty six WLH hens with average initial body weight of 989.72 ± 6.8g (mean ±SD) and age at seven month were used for the experiment. The chickens were randomly distributed to12 pens each with 13 hens and 2 cocks. The 12 pens were randomly distributed to the four treatments diets in complete randomized design Treatments were ration containing Maize for T1 (control) and maize substituted by Lalo,Gemedi and Chemeda sorghum varieties designated as T2, T3 and T4, respectively. The chickens were kept on a deep litter housing system and chickens were offered a weighed amount of feed and feed leftover was collected and weighed the next morning. The experiment lasted for 90 days .Thecrude protein and metabolizable energy content of treatment rations ranged 16.10-17.10 and 2805.8-2907 kcal/kg DM, respectively.Lalo, Gemedi and Chemeda Sorghum grain contain 10.7, 11.5 and 12.6% CP and 3491,3518 and 3569 kcal ME/kg DM, respectively.Dry matter intake, egg production, egg weight, egg mass, Feed conversion efficiency and chick weight was significantly (P<0.001) higher for birds fed with sorghum grain varieties than maize grain based diets, but was similar (P > 0.05)among birds fed with sorghum grain varieties based diet. Body weight change,Average body weight gain of layers and chick length was significantly higher (P<0.01) for T4 followed by T3 and T2 respectively and lower for T1. Albumen weight was 35.46± 0.3,29.86±1 .3, 28.67± 0.12,26.14± 0.73 and Yolk weight was 16.83 ±0.27,15.62 ±0.85,14.81 ±0.12,12.73±0.10) for T4,T3,T2and T1,respectively.Completely replacement of maize with sorghum varieties in the diet did not affect (P > 0.05) egg quality parameters,fertility,hatchability, embryonic mortality and chick quality by visual score. The economic profitability was in the order of T2 > T3 > T4 > T1, respectively. In conclusion, maize grain can be substituted with the sorghum grain varieties in the diet of layers.Sincedid not affected productivity, product quality and economic profitability. Specifically, T2(Lalo) sorghum variety was more recommended due to its high profitability