Canola Meal for Brown Egg Layers

March 2021

Two recent studies were conducted to evaluate canola meal in diets for brown-shelled egg layers. The experiments were undertaken because most of the feeding studies evaluating canola meal for laying hens have been conducted with white-shelled egg layers. In the past, some genotypes of brown-shelled layers were incapable of metabolizing trimethylamine, resulting in a fishy off-flavor to the yolks when canola meal was fed in higher proportions of the diet. While this is no longer an issue, there was a void in demonstrating that these hens could be given canola meal, and therefore the experiments were needed.

The first experiment was conducted at the Dalhousie University and revealed that up to 20% canola meal can be included in diets for brown-shelled egg layers.

The study was conducted over an entire lay cycle of 48 weeks and was divided into 4 feeding phases.  Results are given in Table 1.  Egg weights were slightly lower when canola meal was included in the diet, but there were no differences in any of the other parameters.  The differences in egg weight did not influence size grade. Eggs between 56.0 to 63.9 grams are classified as large. The researchers concluded that 20% canola meal can be included in diets for brown-shelled egg layers with excellent results.

Table 1. Results of the Dalhousie study (average for a full lay cycle)

The second feeding trial was conducted by researchers from Alberta Agriculture and the University of Alberta (Oryschak et al., 2020). In this trial brown-shelled layers were provided with diets that contained no canola meal, 20% solvent extracted canola meal or 20% locally produced expeller canola meal for 36 weeks.

There were some minor differences in feed intake and egg weight, but the researchers concluded that canola meal from both processing methods can be fed at 20% of the diet, with no adverse effects on production or egg quality.

Canola meal may provide feed cost advantages for brown-shelled egg layers.

Table 2. Results of the Alberta study (average for the 36-week feeding period)

Savary, R.K., MacIsaac, J.L., Rathgeber, B.M., McLean, N.L. and Anderson, D.M., 2019. Evaluating Brassica napus and Brassica juncea meals with supplemental enzymes for use in brown-egg laying hen diets: production performance and egg quality factors. Canadian Journal of Animal Science, 99(4), pp.820-832.

Oryschak, M.A., Smit, M.N. and Beltranena, E., 2020. Brassica napus and Brassica juncea extruded-expelled cake and solvent-extracted meal as feedstuffs for laying hens: Lay performance, egg quality, and nutrient digestibility. Poultry science, 99(1), pp.350-363.