The relationship between food and water intake and the effects of water restriction on laying brown leghorn hens

Abstract

1. In 10 laying Brown Leghorn hens, hourly patterns of food and water intake followed each other closely, both throughout the day and in relation to oviposition time. 2. Only half the birds showed significant (P < 0.05) positive correlations between food and water intake on a daily basis, but all of them showed highly significant correlations on an hourly basis. However, on average, about 20% of both the daily and the hourly variation in water intake could be accounted for by variation in food intake, and vice versa. 3. Restricting the daily water supply of each bird to 90% of its ad libitum intake, for a period of 6 weeks, caused a predicted reduction in daily food intake with only 3 out of 10 birds, but a very precise reduction to the level predicted with the overall mean food intake of all the birds. This suggests that water restriction may be a good way of controlling the food consumption of groups of birds but not of individuals. 4. Although egg production did not differ significantly between the ad ...