Vol. 10, Issue 9, Part A (2025)

Author(s): GD Bhad, SH Mane, DH Kankhare, PS Sakhare and MR Pati

Abstract: This experiment entitled, “Effect of Feeding Mulberry (Morus Alba) Leaves on External Egg Quality Traits of White Leghorn” was carried out at Poultry Unit, Division of Animal Husbandry and Dairy Science, College of Agriculture, Pune. The objective was to study external egg quality traits in White leghorn layers by feeding fresh Mulberry leaves. To achieve the objective a total of 240 White leghorn laying hens, were distributed into six treatment groups as T₀, T₁, T₂, T₃, T₄ and T₅ of forty hens each. Laying hens were cater the same experimental diets with varying levels of fresh succulent Mulberry leaves supplementation as in case of layer trial over the duration of experiment from 18 to 33 weeks of age. All hens were reared under identical housing conditions. The diets were designed to meet the requirement of laying hens consuming 120 g of feed per day, which was based on the National Research Council (NRC, 1994). T₀ (control-basal diet only), T₁ (basal diet with 3% fresh Mulberry leaves), T₂ (basal diet with 6% fresh Mulberry leaves), T₃ (basal diet with 9% fresh Mulberry leaves), T₄ (basal diet with 12% fresh Mulberry leaves), and T₅ (basal diet with 15% fresh Mulberry leaves). The data were analyzed using General Linear Model procedure of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Fresh Mulberry leaf inclusion among all treatment groups and comprehensive study of external egg quality evaluation revealed no significant differences across treatments for egg weight (52.82-56.16 g), shell weight (5.25-6.00 g), shell thickness (0.30-0.36 mm), shell shape index (76.76-79.82%), specific gravity (1.08-1.09), indicating maintenance of commercial egg quality standards. According to the current findings, adding fresh mulberry leaves to the diet has not significantly changed any of the parameters pertaining to the external egg quantity.