Effects of Feeding Dried Leftover Food on Productivity of Laying Hens

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different levels of dried leftover food (DLF) in the diet on feed utilization and egg-laying performance of hens. One hundred sixty-eight, 18 week old Tetra brown commercial layers, were assigned to 7 treatments in a completely randomized design. Each treatment has four replications per treatment with six animals per replication. All the experimental animals were fed diets for 7 weeks. The treatments included 1) control group without DLF, 2) diet with 10% DLF, 3) diet with 20% DLF, 4) diet with 30% DLF, 5) 10% higher protein level of diet with 10% DLF, 6) 20% higher protein level of diet with 20% DLF and 7) 30% higher protein level of diet with 30% DLF. Average daily feed intake (ADFI) tended to be improved with DLF feeding. ADFI of group fed diets with 20% was significantly higher than that of control (p<0.05). Feed conversions of DLFfed groups were higher than that of control. Egg production tended to be higher in groups fed diets with 10% DLF than control diet without significant differences (p>0.05). However, those of groups fed diets containing 20 and 30% DLF were lower than that of control. Supplementing protein source to DLF-containing diets improved egg production (p<0.05). Increasing level of DLF in the diet for layer decreased egg weight and egg mass compared to control without significant differences (p>0.05). Protein supplementation to DLF-containing diets increased egg mass without significant difference (p>0.05). The range of egg cholesterol concentration of DLF-fed groups was 11.94-14.10 mg/g while that of control group was 12.31 mg/g although there was no significant difference among treatments (p>0.05).