TITLE:
The Effect of Varied Dietary Crude Protein Levels with Balanced Amino Acids on Performance and Egg Quality Characteristics of Layers at First Laying Phase
AUTHORS:
Gbemiga Oladimeji Adeyemo, Sulaiman Adewole Abioye, Foluke A. Aderemi
KEYWORDS:
Egg Quality; First Laying Phase; Layers; Performance and Varied Crude Protein Levels
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.3 No.4,
April
18,
2012
ABSTRACT: Four diets were formulated to study the influence of varying crude protein levels on the performance, egg quality, serum and haematological characteristics at the first phase of laying cycle of sixty Bovan Nera laying birds that were randomly allotted to dietary treatments. The four experimental diets had five replicates each and three birds per repli-cate. Diet 1 contained 14% crude protein (CP), while diet 2 contained 15% CP, diets 3 and 4 contained 16% and 17% CP respectively. The experimental birds were fed for 10 weeks and the data collected were statistically analysed. Apparent variations recorded for all the performance characteristics such as Egg number, Hen-day production, Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) and weight gain were significantly different (p