Effects of vegetable leaf supplementation on egg yield, quality and economic profitability of Bovan Brown chicken

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of supplementing Bovans Brown chickens with green vegetable leaves (beetroot, spinach, and cabbage) on egg yield, quality, and economic performance. The experiment was carried out using a complete randomized design (CRD) with four treatments: T1 (commercial ration), T2 (commercial ration + 300 gm head cabbage leaf), T3 (commercial ration + 300 gm spinach leaf) and T4 (commercial ration + 300 gm beetroot leaf) with four replications. One hundred forty-four (144) chickens, weighing around 1375.4 g (24 weeks old), were chosen at random and placed in sixteen (16) pens, each with nine (9) chickens housed in a deep litter house. Results revealed that leaves of beetroot, spinach, and cabbage had 90.9, 94.3, and 92.6 DM (%) and 12.9, 11.2, and 14.7 CP (%), respectively. T4 had a greater percentage of hen-day egg production (74.1 %). The egg mass of T3 (65.6 ± 0.5 g) was higher than T1, T2, and T4 treatments. The albumen weight in T3 (42.6 ± 0.6 g) was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than T1, whereas egg weight, shell thickness, Haugh Unit, albumen diameter, yolk diameter, and yolk weight were not significantly affected. T4 had greater returns from the selling of eggs and chickens than other treatments. It was determined that beetroot leaves seemed to be an advantageous supplement to layers' diets and that they were reasonably priced.