Effect of Tomato Waste Meal Diets on Egg Fertility, Hatchability, Embryonic Mortality, Chick’s Quality and Economic Assessment of White Leghorn Layers

The experiment was conducted at poultry unit, Haramaya University, Haramaya, Ethiopia to determine the effects of tomato waste meal supplementation on egg fertility, hatchability, embryonic mortality, chick’s quality and economic analysis of white leghorn chickens. In this experiment, 180 white leghorn layers along with 30 males (41 weeks old age and average body weight of 1.44 kg) were allocated into five ex-perimental groups viz., basal diet + 0.0% tomato waste meal (TWM0), basal diet + 6.5% TWM (TWM6.5), basal diet + 13.0% TWM (TWM13), basal diet + 19.5% TWM (TWM19.5), and basal diet + 26.0% TWM (TWM26) with three replications and each replication have 12 layers and two males. During the experimen-tal period, egg fertility, hatchability, embryo mortality, chick quality and economic analysis were collected and analyzed. The results showed that inclusion of tomato waste meal was non-significantly affected the egg fertility and hatchability. However, chick’s quality significantly (P<0.001) was superior observed in TWM 19.5 (95.3%) as compared to TWM13 (95.00%), TWM6.5 (91.7%), TWM0 (89.7%) and TWM26 (86%) by visual score method. But chick quality on the basis of chick’s weight and length recorded non-significant. The results obtained from economic assessment analysis indicated that inclusion of TWM im-proved the economics of egg performance which is attributed to the high cost of maize. Thus, TWM inclu-sion improved egg fertility, hatchability, chick’s quality and profitability. In conclusion, TWM can be used as an alternative feedstuff for laying hens along with maize at inclusion levels up to 19.50 percent without any negative impact on egg fertility, chick’s quality, embryonic mortality and economic analysis. There-fore, inclusion of TWM in white leghorn diets at up to 19.5 percent is recommended from 41 weeks to 72 weeks of age.