Abstract 262

Narahari,-D; Venugopal,-K; Venkataramanujam,-V; Kothandaraman,-P

Dep. Poultry Science, Madras Veterinary College, Madras-600 007, India.

Indian-Journal-of-Poultry-Science. 1986, 21: 3, 208-214; 16 ref.

White Leghorn layers were fed from 20 to 40 weeks old on diets containing undecorticated rubberseed oil meal (URSOM), autoclaved undecorticated rubberseed oil meal (AURSOM) and fermented undecorticated rubberseed oil meal (FURSOM) at 0, 15 and 30% and decorticated rubberseed oil meal (DRSOM) at 10 and 20%. The performance of control layers, in terms of weight gain, egg production, feed efficiency and net feed efficiency index was superior as compared to other dietary treatments, except for the 10% DRSOM group, which recorded more or less comparable values to that of control. Higher levels (20 and 30%) of inclusion of DRSOM, URSOM, AURSOM and FURSOM resulted in poor laying house performance; the production performance with 15% URSOM, AURSOM and FURSOM was intermediate. Mortality, egg quality, performance efficiency index and the feed cost per 12 eggs did not reveal any definite pattern, based on the dietary treatments. Autoclaving and fermentation did not improve the nutritional value of URSOM in layers.