Diets for laying hens containing unusual ingredients and varying concentrations of cereals including no cereals

1. Light‐ and medium‐hybrid laying hens received one of six diets (A, B, C, D, E and F) containing decreasing amounts (758, 560, 374, 270, 185 and 0 g/kg) of cereals and increasing amounts of unusual ingredients, from 22 weeks of age.

2. The diet containing no cereal and 225 g dried poultry manure/kg (diet F) caused a severe reduction in performance and was discontinued at 27 weeks of age; the other treatments were continued until 48 weeks of age.

3. In the case of medium hybrids, rate of lay (number of eggs/100 hen d) was similar with diets A, B and C and about 2 percentage points lower with diets D and E; egg output (g per hen d) tended to decrease slightly as dietary cereal concentration decreased.

4. In the case of light hybrids, rate of lay was about 5 percentage points lower with diets B, C and D and about 13 percentage points lower with diet E than with diet A.

5. Mortality was similar on each diet.

6. The effect of diet on live‐weight gain was inconsistent and statistically not significant.