Effect of dietary rice husk as insoluble fiber on the production performance and egg quality in layers

Gawande, J., Wade, M.R., Manwar, S.J., Kuralkar, S.V., Kapale, P.M.and Kamdi, B.P. 2025. Effect of dietary rice husk as insoluble fiber on the production performance and egg quality in layers. Indian Journal of Poultry Science, 60(1): 37-43. The trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary rice husk as insoluble crude fiber on the performance and egg quality in layers. A total of 144 layers aged 25 weeks were divided into 4 groups, each of which had 6 repetitions with a total of 6 hens in each replicate. The dietary treatments were the control (T1) basal diet containing 6% crude fiber (CF), the insoluble crud fiber enhanced using rice husk at 25%, 50%, or 75% above 6.0% for T2, T3, and T4, respectively. Productive performance was recorded for 10 weeks and egg quality was evaluated fortnightly. The birds fed rice husk (7.5, 9.0 or 10.5% CF) showed significantly lower feed consumption as compared to control. The egg production was lowered @ 1.38%, 2.84%, 4.81% in birds fed CF with rice husk at 7.5%, 9.0%, 10.5%, respectively as compared to control. The hen house egg production (HHEP) / hen day egg production (HDEP) of the control and T2 groups are comparable. The birds fed with7.5% CF found non-significant FCR on egg number basis. However, the birds fed with 9.0 or10.5% CF found poor FCR as compared to control. The percent weekly egg production, egg weight was reduced with increase in CF. The egg surface was decreased with increasing CF level. Body weight, shape index, haugh unit, albumen index, yolk index, yolk colour score, percent eggshell weight, egg shell thickness were not affected by higher insoluble CF levels. Economically birds fed with 25% CF got the highest profit per egg and cost of egg production reduced up to 3.8% over control. In conclusion, the 50% insoluble crude fiber over 6% CF could be included in layers chicken diet, however, 25% insoluble CF is most economically beneficial compared to other rice husk groups.