Abstract
The study on the nutritive value and the potential use of two kinds (local vs. import) of sesame meal (SSM) in layer diets as substitute for soybean meal (SBM) at 25, 50, and 75% was carried out. Three hundred and thirty six layers were kept individually on a battery cage and fed isonitrogenous diets, 16% crude protein (CP), for 252 days. The local and the imported SSM contained on air dry basis 35.7 and 36.3% CP, 24.7 and 9.1% ether extract (EE), respectively. Their amino acid contents are all lower than those reported by NRC (1984). The local material contained remarkably lower lysine (0.44 vs. 0.94), methionine + cystine (1.06 vs. 1.75) and threonine (0.52 vs. 1.22) than the imported meal. Imported SSM could be substituted for SBM as high as 50% in layer ration without statistically adverse effect on egg production, feed intake, body weight gain, average egg weight and egg size, while local SSM was inferior to the control in all aspects. However, when production performance of the groups fed either kind of SSM was compared, no significant difference was found at the two lower substitution levels.