Digestible lysine requirement for laying hens from 50 to 66 weeks of age

ABSTRACT

With the objective of determining the requirement of digestible lysine for brown-egg laying hens in the period from 50 to 66 weeks of age, an experiment was carried out using 150 Shaver Brown laying hens, distributed in a completely randomized design, with five treatments (digestible lysine levels: 0.79, 0.82, 0.85, 0.88 and 0.91%), six replications and five birds per experimental unit. The production of eggs, weight and the egg mass, feed intake and lysine, feed mass and dozen eggs, specific gravity, Haugh unit, yolk and albumen index, percentage of albumen, yolk and bark were analyzed. Feed intake, feed conversion per dozen of eggs s and per egg mass, egg production, egg weight and egg mass were not influenced (P>0.05) by digestible lysine levels. There was a linear increase in lysine intake (P<0.01) with increasing levels of this amino acid in the diets. The albumen, yolk and shell percentages were not influenced (P>0.05) by studied digestible lysine levels. Lysine levels had a quadratic effect (P>0.05) Haugh unit and albumen index being estimated as 0.884 and 0.868% digestible lysine levels, respectively. For yolk index, the association of the quadratic model to Linear Response Plateau (LRP) estimated the level of 0.903% digestible lysine. When the aim is to maximize the internal egg quality, a dietary level of 0.884%, 0.868% and 0.903% digestible lysine for Haugh unit, albumen index and yolk index, respectively is recommended.

amino acid; Shaver Brown; egg production; egg quality