Influence of Prelay Treatment and Dietary Protein Level on the Reproductive Performance of White Leghorn Hens

Abstract

Two experiments were undertaken to study the influence of prelay diet treatment on subsequent laying performance. Feeding either a conventional laying or growing diet or diets containing essentially only wheat bran from 18 to 21 wk resulted in little grower diet carryover effect beyond 24 wk of age, although the wheat bran diets resulted in a marked drop in body weight of the pullets during the prelay treatment. Similar performance was noted for pullets in a second experiment in which prelay treatments consisted of feeding just corn or wheat bran from 18 to 20 wk of age. In interpreting the results of the present study, it is important to consider the fact that “mature pullet weights” were obtained before the prelay diet treatments were employed. Where prelay diet treatments have had significant effects on laying house performance, in most cases, immature or underweight pullets were involved.Feeding hens low-protein diets (13 versus 17%) from 20 to 44 wk of age resulted in similar egg production; however, egg weight and thus egg mass were slightly reduced with the lower protein diet. There was no laying by growing treatment interaction. The importance of good pullet weight at the start of the production cycle and the subsequent performance of such pullets fed low-protein diets is discussed.