PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF SILVER MONTAZH LAYING HENS FED DIETS CONTAINING DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PROTEIN AND ENERGY

The energy and protein content of the diet play an important role in adjusting the bird's consumption to meet its needs for growth and to begin producing eggs. The purpose of this study was to look into how energy and protein levels affected laying performance, egg quality, fertility, hatchability rate and some blood parameters. A total of 144 Silver Montazah laying hens 24-weeks-old were randomly divided into six treatments in a 2 × 3 factorial design using two metabolizable energy levels (2700 and 2850 Kcal ME/kg) and three protein levels: low (14%), medium (16%), and high (18%). The birds were kept individually in cages, with 24 hens for each treatment. The results can be summarized as follows: Birds fed on higher energy content exhibited significantly (P≤ 0.01) increased  in final body weight (FBW), change in body weight (CBW), feed conversion ratio (FCR), egg production (EP) parameters  and cholesterol level compared to low-energy diets. However, hens provided with low-energy diets had an increased significant (P≤0.1) in daily feed intake (DFI), daily protein intake (DPI), protein efficiency ratio (PER), and metabolizable energy efficiency (MEE). Birds fed 18%-protein diets exhibited significant increases in FBW, CBW, DPI, PER, FCR, EP, MEE, and alanine amino transferees than those fed on 14% -protein diets. Birds fed 16 or 18% protein with a high energy level showed improvements in FBW, CBW, FCR, and EP. In addition, blood cholesterol levels significantly increased compared to other treatments. Furthermore, hens received 16% -protein diet with the low-energy level scored the greatest values in aspartate transaminase, but the same energy level with 18% protein resulted in a significant (P≤0.01) increase in ALT compared to other treatments. Hens fed a diet of 16% protein with a 2850 Kcal/kg diet achieved the highest economic efficiency compared to other groups.
From an economic point of view, it is clear that a diet of 16% protein and 2850 Kcal/Kg is the most optimal for Silver Montazah laying hens to maximize productive performance during the 24 -to -39 -week study period.