Effect of feeding different levels of lysine and protein on the performance of WLH layers.

A trial was conducted to evaluate the requirement of digestible lysine at various protein levels in the diet of WLH layers (BV-300) from 25-44 weeks of age. Layers (528) were fed with diets containing two protein levels i.e. 13.36 and 15.78% each with 5% concentration variations of lysine (0.50, 0.55, 0.60, 0.65, and 0.70) and a control with 17% CP and 0.70% lysine. Each diet was fed to six replicates of eight birds. Egg production, feed intake, body weight were not influenced either by the concentration of lysine or by level of protein in diet. Increased (P d" 0.05) egg weight and egg mass were observed with increasing lysine in diets. Better feed efficiency was observed with increasing lysine concentration. It can be concluded that WLH layers require approximately 0.65% lysine with 13.36% CP or 0.63% lysine with 15.78% CP (i.e. 598.80 vs 570 mg/h/day) in diet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]