Lachance Nutrition ｜ How do both length and BW meet the standards to improve egg production in laying hens?

The laying hens?which is in the brooding period?are collectively referred to as the?reserve?laying hens. The development of the reserve laying hens directly affects the laying performance during the laying period. The indicators for measuring the development status of the?reserve?laying hens include survival rate, body weight, length of tibia, and age of first laying, among which the length of tibia and body weight are the most important. The length of tibia?can reflect the development of the reserve laying hens (ie, the development of the bones), while the body weight directly reflects the development of the body and organs of the hens. The body weight is the basic guarantee for the first laying of the hens on time.

The length of the tibia and body weight are closely related to the laying performance of the laying hens. Therefore, attention should be paid to the growth coordination of body weight and body size during the growth period. The double qualified rate of the weight and length of tibia?is an important indicator of the ideal size of the laying hen, that is, the size of the laying hen is moderate, the weight is up to standard, and the uniformity is good. This kind of laying hens has moderate feed intake, high feed utilization rate, timely production, moderate egg size, fast egg production rate after first laying, and long egg peak?period.

The actual problems often encountered in production are complicated. For example, for the chickens that with the long enough tibia but a light weight, theirs egg weight is often small in the early stage of laying. For?the chickens that with the overweight but the tibia is not up to standard, severe salpingitis or rectal prolapse will occur, and the death rate is high. When the length?of tibia?and body weight?exceed the standard, the ratio of the feed?to the egg is increased.

Therefore, in the brooding and rearing?stage, efforts should be made to ensure that the length and weight of the hens are doubled?qualified, which will lay the foundation for the high production?of laying hens in the future, in order to obtain the best egg production effect and the best economic benefit.

According to the developmental characteristics of body weight and the correlation between body weight and production performance during laying period, the feeding management should focus on the weight gain in early brooding, the growth of tibia?before 8 weeks of age and both of the length and weight during 8-12 weeks old. The growth of body weight strives to make the length of tibia?reach the standard and the uniformity is over 90%, and the weight is up to standard and the uniformity is over 80%. This requires that high-nutrition chicken feed must be fed during the brooding period to ensure that the hen's skeletal system is well developed, which has become the industry consensus. Many laying hens have been fed high-protein (CP ≥ 20%), high-energy, high-vitamin chicken feed during the brooding period so that the length and weight of the hens are up to standard.

The practice of mass production has proved that feeding high-protein, high-energy feed during the feeding stage of chicks is often makes it easy to reach the target of body weight, and it is difficult to reach the length standard?of tibia. Moreover, for chicks, because the development of hepatobiliary function is not perfect, resulting in the?short?secretion of endogenous emulsifiers, high-fat?and?high-protein diets will make the liver and gallbladder system of the chicks run at high load, resulting in the liver and gallbladder?syndrome?of chicks easily occur. Insufficient liver bile acid secretion caused by hepatobiliary syndrome can cause pathological phenomena such as decreased feeding, fat-soluble vitamin malabsorption, fatty liver, nutritional diarrhea, and feed?faeces.

Adding bile acid in?the chicken diet can effectively improve the digestion and absorption of high protein and high fat feed, improve feed conversion rate, increase the double qualified?rate of body weight and tibia?length, increase the uniformity of chicks by more than 5%, and prevent fatty liver. At the same time, it promotes the absorption and utilization of fat-soluble vitamins, removes toxins accumulated in the body, and prevents intestinal problems such as feed waste and feed faeces due to poor use of fat-soluble substances in oils and fats.

The use of bile acids can not only ensure the well-developed bones of the flocks, but also make the chickens more weight uniform, so as to ensure the timely first laying?of the flocks, and lay a good foundation for the stable and high yield of the egg production period, and create the best breeding benefits.