USING APPLE PROCESSING WASTE IN LAYING HENS’ FEED

The use of apple processing waste in poultry feeding in order to enrich the diet with a number of valuable substances and compounds is relevant. To study this issue, scientific experiments were conducted at an enterprise producing fruit juices, jam, and other products (agrofirm «Kazbek») in feeding egg-laying hens in the conditions of JSC PR «Mikhailovskoye» (RSO-Alania, Prigorodny district). Egg-laying hens were fed apple waste. During the experiments, the effect on productivity, and most importantly, on the nutritional quality of eggs, their chemical composition were observed. The hens of two experimental groups were given 200 and 300 g of crushed apple processing waste in their feed. Apples are a rich source of vitamins, which are often lacking in feed mixtures for hens. The layers that received apple processing waste with their feed demonstrated the best performance: the egg productivity of hens in the 1st experimental group was 156.0 pcs. per average laying hen per experiment, the second - 163.2 pcs., and the control - 149.1 pcs. per experiment. The difference is 2.8 and 4.5 %. In the control group, the intensity of egg laying per experiment was 50.1 %, while in the experimental - 52.9 and 54.6 %. The quality of the eggs obtained was also not the same: the average weight of an egg in the control group was 60.8 g, the first experimental - 63.6, the second - 64.8 g (the difference is reliable). The content of B vitamins increased by 0.97 and 1.23 μg/g in protein, as well as by 0.52 and 0.75 μg/g in yolk, carotenoids by 0.50 and 1.6 μg/g, iron by 0.72 and 1.14 mg/100 g. The energy value of eggs increased by 7.5 and 8.9 kcal due to the increased fat content in the yolk. Thus, apple processing waste is a wonderful opportunity to increase the vitamin and mineral composition of feed without additional financial investments. The introduction of apple processing waste into the feed mixture for laying hens proved to be cost-effective.