This experiment was conducted to study the effect of the inclusion of a commercial enzyme complex (alpha-amylase, xylanase and proteases) especific for corn and soybean meal based diets, on laying hens performance. One hundred and twenty eight Hy-line White Leghorns hens with 68 weeks of age, in the 2nd cycle of production were assigned to a completely randomized block design with four replications of four birds per block, totalizing 32 birds per treatment. Two isonitrogenous diets with different levels of metabolizable energy (ME) were formulated based on corn, soybean meal, wheat bran and supplemented or not with enzyme. The treatments were: T1 - diet with 2850 kcal ME/kg; T2 - diet with 2850 kcal ME/kg and 0.1% enzyme; T3 - diet with 2750 kcal ME/kg; T4 - diet with 2750 kcal ME/kg and 0.1% enzyme. The experiment was run for 112 days divided in four periods of 28 days each. The studied variables were: egg production (% hen/day), feed intake (g/bird per day), egg weight (g), feed:egg mass (kg feed/kg egg), weight gain (g) and feed cost. Analysis of variance showed no effect of the enzyme supplementation on any of the studied variables. Diets supplemented with enzyme at the evaluated levels did not affect laying hens performance.
enzyme; egg production; egg weight; feed:egg mass
