Comparison of egg laying behaviour and production performance between ‘conventional nest box’ and ‘novel roll away egg nest’ system in backyard poultry rearing

A  PRAKASH; A  SHARMA; Y  SINGH; S  KASWAN; PRIYA

doi:10.56093/ijans.v95i9.168226

Authors

A PRAKASH College of Veterinary Science, Rampura Phul, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India-151 103
A SHARMA College of Veterinary Science, Rampura Phul, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India-151 103
Y SINGH College of Veterinary Science, Rampura Phul, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India-151 103
S KASWAN College of Veterinary Science, Rampura Phul, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India-151 103
PRIYA College of Veterinary Science, Rampura Phul, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India-151 103

https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v95i9.168226

Keywords:

Backyard rearing, Egg eating, Laying behaviour, Nest box, ‘Novel Roll Away Nest’, Production loss

Abstract

A specially designed “Novel Roll Away Nest” was compared with the conventional (made up of brick and soil) to find out the production performance and egg laying behaviour for backyard poultry. The experiment was conducted using a total of 60 commercial BV 300-layer birds, aged 60-76 weeks, during 2024. The behaviour (egg eating, floor laying, broken eggs, and dirty eggs) and performance (hen day and hen housed egg production, feed conversion ratio (FCR) based on dozen of eggs produced and egg mass) of experimental laying birds with novel roll-away egg nests and once daily egg collection was comparied to the laying birds with the conventional nest (TC, made up of brick and soil) with different daily egg collection frequencies (1, 2, 3 or 4 times/day i.e. T_C¹, T_C ², T_C³ and T_C ⁴) for the period of 4-month (i.e. P1, P2, P3 and P4). In the roll-away egg nest group, the egg laying on the floor was almost 9.44 times and egg-eating behaviour was 11.47 times lower than the conventional egg nest group. Whereas, the hen day egg production (based on total saleable eggs) and FCR in the roll-away egg nest group were comparable to the conventional egg nest group with 4 times daily egg collection frequency. Also, the conventional egg nest group, having a 4 times daily egg collection frequency, required more labour. The majority of the hens displayed a preference for the roll-away nest box over the conventional nest. In conclusion, the improved parameters in the novel roll way rollaway plausibly attributable nest were achieved due to its novel design, which provided a cosy and confined space for birds to lay eggs and allows the rolling back of the egg to the rear end once it is laid and making it inaccessible to birds, thereby preventing egg-eating habits.

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