Document Type : Original Article
Authors
Department of Animal and Poultry Nutrition, Desert Research Center, Mataria, Cairo, Egypt
Abstract
A total of 105 Dokki-4 laying hens, 24 weeks of age were used to study utilization of dry corn grains distillation by-product with soluble (DDGS) as an alternative non-conventional feed stuff in laying hen diets. Hens were divided equally into seven treatment groups, three levels of DDGS (20, 25 and 30 %) without or with enzyme (1g enzyme/kg diet), in addition to8 control group. Each group contains five replicates with 3 birds each. Egg production and egg weight were recorded and egg mass was calculated daily during 24 to 36 weeks of age. Random samples of 5 eggs from each treatment were collected weekly to measure egg quality. Results showed that proximate analysis for DDGS yielded values of 93.72% for dry matter (DM), 21.74% for crude protein (CP), 6.74% for ether extract (EE), 6.54 % for crude fiber (CF) and 5.93% for ash. Hens fed diet containing 20 % DDGS recorded the highest (P ≤ 0.05) egg production, egg weight, egg mass, lowest feed consumption and the best feed conversion ratio (FCR), values were 76.32%, 43.15g, 32.91g/ hen/ day, 99.02g/ hen /day and 3.06 g feed/g egg, respectively. Supplementation of enzyme to diets containing DDGS had significant effect on egg production, egg weight, egg mass, feed consumption and FCR. Concerning to the interaction between DDGS level and enzyme supplied, hen fed 20 % DDGSwith enzyme recorded values similar to hen feed control diet. Albumen wt. %, yolk wt. %, shell wt. %, shape index and yolk index, were not affectedby DDGS level, on the other hand Haugh unit and shell thickness were insignificantly affected by DDGS level. The interaction between DDGS level and enzyme supplied effect on egg quality except shell thickness had not. The best value for economical efficiency and relative economical efficiency had been recorded by hen fed on control diet (0.50 and 100%) followed by 20% DDGSwith 1 g enzyme / kg diet (0.45 and 90 %). The present study show that DDGS could be used in layer diets up to 20% with 1 g enzyme / kg diet without adverse effect on performance of laying hens and egg quality.
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