Tuleun et al., 2008. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 20 (5)

A feeding trial was conducted to determine the effects of inclusion in the diet of raw, boiled and toasted mucuna beans (Mucuna utilis) on the performance of laying hens. The birds used were 34-week old Isa-Brown® hens. Four diets were formulated, such that diet 1 (control) contained no mucuna beans while diets 2, 3 and 4 contained 20% of raw, boiled and toasted mucuna beans, respectively. Each diet was fed to three groups of 10 birds. Feed intake and body weight gain differed significantly among treatments. Birds on the raw mucuna bean diet were significantly (P<0.05) smaller than those on the other diets. The birds on the control and toasted mucuna diets had significantly (P<0.05) higher hen-day and hen-housed egg production than those on raw and boiled mucuna bean diet. Feed/gain ratio was, however, significantly (P<0.05) better for birds fed boiled mucuna beans, followed by those fed the toasted beans, while it was the same for birds fed the control and raw mucuna bean diets. External and internal egg quality indices were not significantly altered by the treatments. Raw mucuna bean was shown to impair the performance of layers. This was partially reversed by boiling the beans, while toasting the mucuna beans completely reversed all the deleterious effects of the raw beans.