Abstract

Some recent research of nutrition of laying hens in different housing systems is discussed. Causes of variation in productivity, mortality rate and cannibalism rate in aviaries revealed a strong effect of genotype and in brown birds differences may occur between beak-trimmed and intact hens. Diet x genotype interactions seem preferably to influence health criteria, whereas genotypes tend to react similar what concerns production characteristics. The content of insoluble fibre in the diet may influence feather-pecking behaviour, and oats has been shown to decrease the risk of feather-pecking whereas wheat had the opposite effect. In a “semi”-organic environment genotypes was found to behave significant differently to variations in the diet’s methionine content and methionine supplementation preferably improved health criteria and less production in number of eggs

Published in

Publisher: The Hungarian Branch of WPSA

Conference

Fifth European Symposium on Poultry Nutrition

Authors' information