Effect of Feeding Black Soldier Fly Larvae Meal on Production Performance and Egg Quality in Layers

Khandekar, A., Wade, M.R., Manwar, S.J., Kuralkar, S.V., Ingole, R.S., Amrutkar, S.A. and Deshpande, K.Y. 2025. Effect of feeding black soldier fly larvae meal on production performance and egg quality in layers. Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology, 25: 391–401. An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of feeding black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) meal on production performance and egg quality in 144 BV-300 laying hens. Birds were randomly allotted into four dietary treatments with six replicates comprising six birds per replicate. The dietary treatments were T1 (basal diet), T2 (1.5% BSFL meal), T3 (3% BSFL meal) and T4 (4.5% BSFL meal). Productive performance was assessed for 10 weeks and egg quality was determined once every two weeks by randomly collecting two eggs per replicate. The result showed that layer birds fed with 4.5% BSFL meal recorded significantly (P<0.05) higher feed consumption, weekly egg production, weekly egg biomass, and average egg weight per bird. The weekly FCR was also significantly better on an egg biomass basis in birds fed with 4.5% BSFL meal than in control and 1.5% BSFL meal fed birds. The provision of BSFL meal up to 4.5% had no significant effect (P>0.05) on body weight, hen house and hen day egg production as well as FCR on an egg number basis. The egg quality parameters, viz. egg weight, shape index, yolk index, yolk colour score, and eggshell thickness, were not affected. There was no mortality during the experimental period. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of BSFL meal up to 4.5% in the basal diet is effective to improve production performance of laying hens, enhance egg quality parameters and economics of egg production.