Livestock Research for Rural Development 26 (11) 2014 Guide for preparation of papers LRRD Newsletter Citation of this paper Replacing soybean meal with processed Lupin (Lupinus Albus) meal as poultry layers feed Gebremedhn Beyene, Negassi Ameha 1 , Mengistu Urge 1 and Awet Estifanos 2 College of Agriculture and Natural resource Sciences, Department of Animal Science, P.O.Box 445, Debre Berhan University gebremedhnb@yahoo.com 1 College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, School of Animal and Range Sciences, Haramaya University, P.O.Box 138, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia 2 Tigray Agricultural Research Institute, P.O.Box 492, Mekelle, Tigray Abstract A study was conducted to evaluate effects of replacing Processed Lupin Meal (PLM) for soybean meal (SBM) as protein ingredient on feed intake, body weight gain, egg production and quality, feed conversion efficiency, and profitability for a period of 90 days. A total of 150 birds with uniform body weight and age were randomly allocated to five treatments. Treatments were SBM replaced by PLM at a proportion of 0 (PLM0), 25 (PLM25), 50 (PLM50), 75 (PLM75) and 100% (PLM100) within the ration formulated to be isocaloric and isonitrogenous. Except the egg yolk color, replacing SBM with PLM did not affect egg production and quality parameters. Feed cost decreased with increasing level of PLM. It is therefore concluded that all levels of replacement of SBM with PLM in a layer diet did not affect production and quality parameters. However, it had a significant reduction in egg production cost of white leghorn layers. Therefore, replacing SBM with PLM reduces cost of production and improves poultry egg productivity. Key words: egg quality, local feed source, poultry production, white leghorn Introduction Poultry production is gaining popularity in the developing countries due to its role in bridging the protein deficiency, economic empowerment of the resource poor segment of different societies and its ability to fit well in the farming systems commonly practiced (King’ori 2011 ). The proportion of feed cost in poultry production has been increasing because of the volatility of the feed market and stiff competition for feed resources between human and animal feed industry (Yegani 2009 ). The most appropriate strategy for developing countries is likely to be the development of dietary formulations, which allow locally available ingredients to be used as substitution for traditional feed ingredients to reduce feed costs (Jurgen et al 1998). Ads by RoyalCoupon Ad Options Replacing soybean meal with processed Lupin (Lupinus Albus) meal as po... http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd26/11/gerb26204.htm 1 of 8 04-Nov-14 10:50 AM