Effect of Varying Nutrient Density of Diets on Productive Performance in Dahlem Red Layers

This study was conducted to optimize the nutrient requirement for Dahlem Red (DR) birds. Five diets were formulated i.e., one basal diet (BD) with optimum (100%) nutrients, two diets with lower (97.5% and 95%) and two diets with higher (102.5% and 105%) nutrients as compared to the BD. A total of 240 number of DR layers of 23 weeks were selected and divided into 5 groups, each having 8 replicates and each replicate had 5 birds. The experiment was continued up to 70 weeks. Feed intake was higher (P<0.05) in groups fed the diet containing 95 and 97.5% of nutrient of the BD. The egg production and egg weight were higher (P<0.05) in groups fed the diet containing higher nutrient (102.5% and 105%) as compared to those birds fed lower nutrient dense diets (97.5% and 95%) during the 23–42 weeks. The feed efficiency was better (P<0.05) among the groups fed diet containing higher nutrient density diets as compared to those groups fed lower nutrient density diets during the 23–42 and 59–70 weeks. However, egg components and egg quality parameters did not differ among the groups. Therefore, it seems that the diet with 102.5% nutrients would be more remunerative as the higher egg production and better feed efficiency was eobserved.