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Farm Sustainability Dashboard

The Farm Sustainability Dashboard has been designed to improve industry best practice and meet evolving community expectations. It has been created for business owners and is appropriate for farms of all sizes.

Leading Research

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Practical strategies to increase individual layer hens feed efficiency

  • Organisation University of Sydney

Practical strategies to increase individual layer hens feed efficiency

The overall findings of this study reveal that significant variation exists in the feed efficiency of layer hens. In this project, hens that put on more weight from the point of lay to mid-lay tended to be less feed efficient and have poorer quality eggs. The high feed efficient hens had better egg quality and were less prone to liver damage or fatty liver.

11 Feed and Nutrition FN

Reportedly, a lot of variation exists between individual commercial laying hens. Hens of the same flock will have varying body weight, feed efficiency, persistency of lay, egg production and egg quality.

In this research project, a flock of hens was monitored throughout lay on an individual basis in order to characterise the production traits of each animal and understand the factors associated with egg quality in commercial laying hens. The tendency for production traits to persist from early to mid-lay within an individual animal was also investigated.

The research revealed that feed efficiency and egg quality are inextricably linked. In this project high feed efficiency hens produced higher quality eggs including albumen height, albumen weight, haugh units and albumen: yolk ratio. Inefficient hens had heavier, fattier livers, greater abdominal fat and were more prone to fatty liver haemorrhagic syndrome.

Inefficient hens also spent more time eating and walking and significantly less time resting when compared with efficient hens.

The findings of this study suggest that strategies to improve whole cycle flock uniformity in terms of production traits and egg quality must attempt to control bodyweight in early lay, as early increments in bodyweight are associated with entire lay cycle inefficiency.

The researchers have published several scientific papers on this project, click on the links below to access them: 

Hens That Exhibit Poorer Feed Efficiency Produce Eggs with Lower Albumen Quality and Are Prone to Being Overweight

Animals 2021, 11(10), 2986; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11102986

Anene, D.O.; Akter, Y.; Thomson, P.C.; Groves, P.; Liu, S.; O’Shea, C.J.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/10/2986

 

Variation and Association of Hen Performance and Egg Quality Traits in Individual Early-Laying ISA Brown Hens

Animals 2020, 10(9), 1601; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091601

by Doreen O. Anene, Yeasmin Akter, Peter C. Thomson, Peter Groves  and Cormac J. O’Shea

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/9/1601

 

The intake pattern and feed preference of layer hens selected for high or low feed conversion ratio

Clark CEF, Akter Y, Hungerford A, Thomson P, Islam MR, Groves PJ, et al.

PLoS ONE 14(9): e0222304. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222304

Cameron E. F. Clark , Yeasmin Akter, Alena Hungerford, Peter Thomson, Mohammed R. Islam, Peter J. Groves, Cormac J. O’Shea

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0222304

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