Abstract

An experiment was carried out to study the effects of ascorbic acid (AA) and dietary levels of dried baobab fruit pulp meal (BFPM) supplementation as sources of ascorbic acid in layer diets during the cool-wet season. The results for feeding trials indicated that ascorbic acid supplementation up to 200mg/kg of diet and 3.5% dietary level of Baobab fruit pulp meal significantly improved performances of layers . Ascorbic acid supplementation of 200mg/kg also improved the performance of laying hen compared to the control diets as reflected in improved final weights, hen-day egg production, feed intake, kg feed/dozen eggs and feed cost/dozen eggs as well as egg quality during the cool-wet season. Increasing the level of BFPM beyond 3.5% was found to be uneconomical and counter- productive for layers during the wet season. The bulkiness and powdery nature of the BFPM diets could probably have been responsible for the decline in the performances of layers birds fed 7.0 and 10.5% BFPM supplementations. Hen-day egg production was improved by 7.1% in cool-wet season. Keywords: Ascorbic acid, Hen-day-egg production, cool-wet season,Baobab fruit pulp.