The effect of feeding low‐protein diets to pullets from hatch to point‐of‐lay and the quantitative restriction of food during the subsequent laying period

Pullets from two commercial breeds were fed on diets of similar energy content but with 19% or 16% crude protein to 8 weeks of age and from 8 to 20 weeks of age on one of three isoenergetic diets containing either 12, 14 or 16% crude protein. At 20 weeks the birds were offered a conventional layers’ diet containing 16% crude protein either ad libitum or on a daily food intake of 100 g for a further 32 weeks.

The results indicate that with certain breeds the dietary protein levels can be lowered to approximately 16% during the o to 8‐week period and to approximately 12% during the 8 to 20‐week period without adversely affecting egg production. However, variations in the laying performance of the different breeds appear to be dependent on the amount of protein fed in the first eight weeks of life. Significant breed effects were observed throughout the experiment and although restricted feeding during the laying period substantially reduced the food intake it also had a detrimental effect on the rate of egg production and on the total weight of eggs produced.