Abstract

The study was to evaluate feeding processed kidney bean meal (PKBM) instead of soybean meal (SBM) on fertility, hatchability, embryonic mortality and chick quality of white leghorn (WL) hens. Replacement of SBM with PKBM in the diet did not affect the fertility, hatchability and embryonic mortality. Chick length (15.63, 15.00, 15.33, 15.03 and 14.33 (SEM =#xB1;0.02)) and chick weight (34.13, 34.20, 33.13, 33.06 and 32.47(SEM=#xB1;1.39)) for T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 respectively, were significantly (Plt;0.05) lower for T5 than the rest treatments. Visual assessment of chick quality is lower for treatments containing higher proportion of PKBM than treatments containing lower proportion of PKBM. Therefore, as it affects the quality of chicks at 100% replacement, it is only up to 75% replacement of SBM by PKBM (dosed at 195 g/kg concentrate diet) is possible without having significant negative effect on chick quality.