AFRC’s Poultry Research Centre, Roslin, Midlothian EH 25 9PS, Scotland (UK)
*Present Address : Central Avian Research Institute, Izataagar-243 122(U.P.).
Online published on 21 January, 2012.
The effect of including guar meal at 0, 50,100 or ISO g/kg of the diet fed as mash, pellets or mash + 0.5%, methionine were investigated in an experiment involving 1152 pullets, half of them Warren SSL and another half Babcock 5 B 300, housed in individual laying cages from 18 to 73 weeks of age. Egg number, mean egg weight, egg mass and feed intake decreased when diets containing guar meal were offered as mash or pellets but supplementation of guar meal-containing diets with additional methionine significantly (P< 0.05) improved the performance of hens. Whereas both breeds showed similar response to dietary guar meal, the ty arren SSL hens weighed significantly (P< 0.01) heavier than Babcock prior to and after the experiment and gained more body weight than the latter. Mortality increased with increasing level ofguarmealin diet, more so in birds fed pelleted diets and was very low in hens fed guarmeal-containing diet supplemented with 0.5% methionine.
