A mix of black soldier fly and an aquatic plant could be added to the diets of layer hens without reducing egg quality, the results of an Indonesian study suggest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Researchers at Universitas Syiah Kuala set out to find out what impact a combination of black soldier fly larvae meal and meal from the aquatic plant azolla would have in the diets of hybrid chickens, which are bred for high productivity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They tested feeding five different diets<\/a> to randomised groups of birds: a basal diet typically used in the industry, and four diets reducing the basal diet component to 90%, 80% and twice to 85%, making up the remainder with different quantities of the novel ingredients. They recorded egg shape, egg weight, Haugh units, which are a metric based on egg white height and egg weight, yolk colour and egg grade, which is an industry standard based on Haugh unit measurements. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n No hits to egg shape, weight or colour<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n They found that adding up to 10% each of the insect and plant meals had no statistically-significant impact on any of the egg quality metrics, meaning that potentially, 20% of birds\u2019 diets could be replaced with these sustainable and potentially cost-saving feed options<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They saw the best results for egg shape in the treatment containing 85% basal feed, 10% black soldier flour and 5% azolla flour, recording egg shapes that were not too round and not too oval. This could be due to the high protein content found in this diet, they suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the final egg grading, the treatment containing 90% basal diet, 5% black soldier fly and 5% azolla produced the best results, with no eggs in Grade C and 16.6% and 16.7% in Grade AA and A, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New options needed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is now considerable evidence about the nutritional qualities of black soldier fly<\/a> and its suitability as both a feed and food, but there is now a growing body of research highlighting the potential of azolla as well as other aquatic plants<\/a>. Azolla has a symbiotic relationship with algae to concentrate its protein content but is considered a serious invasive species in some parts of the world, including the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With feed costs an ever-present concern for poultry producers, particularly in developing countries, cheaper alternatives such as meals derived from insects and plants could prove to have a wide appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A mix of black soldier fly and an aquatic plant could be added to the diets of layer hens without reducing egg quality, the results of an Indonesian study suggest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[661,686,687,684,66,495,73,259,51],"other-categories":[218],"class_list":["post-3633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alternative-feeds","tag-alternative-animal-feed","tag-alternative-feed-egg-quality","tag-alternative-poultry-diets","tag-azolla-chicken-feed","tag-black-soldier-fly","tag-black-soldier-fly-livestock-feed","tag-farming-future-food","tag-feeding-chickens-insects","tag-sustainable-agriculture","other-categories-editors-pick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3635,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633\/revisions\/3635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3633"},{"taxonomy":"other-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farmingfuturefood.com\/feb2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/other-categories?post=3633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}