How to reduce the amount of fat added and improve the growth performance of laying hens?

01. Brief description of the role of bile acids

Bile acid, as a feed additive, has been widely used in livestock and poultry feeds. Its functions are, firstly, to improve feed digestibility and utilization, give full play to feed value, and promote digestion and absorption of fat and protein feed in feed; secondly, it can stabilize feed quality, reduce the damage caused by anti-nutritional factors and toxins contained in feed raw materials to the liver and intestines of livestock and poultry, ensure the health of animals, and maintain production efficiency; thirdly, bile acid can protect the intestinal liver axis, improve the intestinal environment, maintain the balance of flora, and enhance the ability of animals to resist stress factors;

In addition, bile acids can improve the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K as well as pigments in feed. In particular, the addition of bile acids to laying hen feed can improve egg quality. Finally, bile acids can also act as regulatory factors, participate in multiple metabolisms, comprehensively regulate the body's internal environment, promote animal health, and improve productivity.

02. Application case of adding bile acid to laying hen feed to reduce costs

The experiment was conducted in a farm in China. Two Hailan brown laying hens with similar production performance were selected. One house had 48,390 chickens as the control group, and the other house had 49,268 chickens as the experimental group. The control group used the original formula feed. The experimental group reduced metabolic energy by 20 kcal/kg and crude protein by 0.2% on the basis of the original formula. In addition, 200 g/t of bile acid was added to the feed. After the formula was adjusted, the feed cost was reduced by 13.79 yuan (see Table 1 for the formula adjustment). The trial period was 12 weeks (from 43 to 54 weeks).

03. Feeding management and statistics

Feeding management is carried out in accordance with the original management of the chicken farm. Feeding data mainly include daily statistical production performance indicators such as egg production rate, egg weight, feed intake, broken egg rate and mortality rate.

04. Results and Analysis

From the test results in Table 2, it can be seen that reducing the energy by 20 kcal/kg and the crude protein by 0.2 in the feed while adding 200 g/t of bile acid to the feed has no effect on the egg production rate, feed consumption, egg weight, feed-egg ratio, number of broken eggs and mortality rate of laying hens.

From the above test results, it can be seen that appropriately reducing the energy and crude protein content in the feed and adding bile acid can improve the feed quality and save feed formulation costs.