Zeinab Moradpour; Somayeh Salari; Mohammad Reza Ghorbani; Mohsen Sari
Volume 18, Issue 2 , June 2016, , Pages 261-272
Abstract
This experiment conducted to evaluate the effect of different methods of force molting on performance, egg quality of laying hens with one hundred eighty of 52-wk old Hy-line layer in completely randomized design with six treatments, five replicates for 90 days. Treatments include 1 - feed withdrawal ...
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This experiment conducted to evaluate the effect of different methods of force molting on performance, egg quality of laying hens with one hundred eighty of 52-wk old Hy-line layer in completely randomized design with six treatments, five replicates for 90 days. Treatments include 1 - feed withdrawal (FW), 2 - 50 percent alfalfa meal: 50 percent layer ration, 3 - 75 percent alfalfa meal: 25 percent layer ration, 4 - 100 percent alfalfa meal, 5 - whole barley grain (WBG) and 6 - high level of zinc oxide (20000 ppm) that were used for 10 days. The highest percentage of weight loss was observed in FW and zinc oxide groups (P<0.05). Egg production of birds that fed 50 percent alfalfa meal: 50 percent layer ration stopped later and reached to 50 percent egg production sooner than the other treatments (P<0/05). The WBG and 100 percent alfalfa meal had better egg production feed conversion ratio in compare to FW birds (P<0.05). The mean egg weight observed higher in FW group and egg yolk color was higher in FW and WBG groups in compare to the other treatments (P<0.05). The WBG and zinc oxide groups had highest eggshell percentage (P<0.05). According to the results of this experiment it seems that WBG and 100 percent alfalfa meal groups are the useful methods for force molting because of improving performance parameters of layers.