Effect of Varying Nutrient Density of Diets on Productive Performance in Dahlem Red Layers

Abstract

The study was conducted to optimize the nutrient requirement for Dahlem Red (DR) birds. Five diets were formulated  i.e., one basal diet (BD) with optimum (100%) nutrients, two diets with lower (97.5 % and 95%) and two diets with higher (102.5% and 105%) nutrients to the BD. A total of 240 number of DR layers of 23 weeks were selected and divided into 5 groups, each having 8 replicates and each replicate had 5 birds. The experiment was continued up to 70 weeks. Feed intake was higher (P<0.05) in groups fed the diet contained 95 and 97.5% of nutrient of the BD.  The egg production and egg weight were higher (P<0.05) in groups fed the diet contained higher nutrient (102.5% and 105%) compared to those birds fed lower nutrient based-diets (97.5 % and 95%) during the 23-42 weeks. The feed efficiency was better (P<0.05) among the groups fed diet contained higher nutrient density diets compared to those groups fed lower nutrient density diets during the 23-42 and 59-70 weeks. However, egg components and egg quality parameters did not differ among the groups fed the different experimental diets. Therefore, it is concluded that the diet with 102.5% nutrients probably the more remunerative as the higher egg production and better feed efficiency was evident.