Effect of different concentrations of metabolisable energy and protein on performance of White Leghorn layers in a tropical climate

Abstract1. An experiment was conducted to study the effects of feeding graded concentrations of metabolisable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) on the performance of layers. Nine diets with three concentrations each of ME (10.04, 10.67 and 11.30 MJ/kg) and CP (150, 165 and 180 g/kg) in a 3 × 3 factorial arrangement of treatments were formulated.2. A total of 5544 White Leghorn (WL) pullets (20 weeks of age) were housed in 4-bird colony cages and 22 adjacent cages constituted a replicate. Each diet was fed ad libitum to 7 replicates from 21 to 72 weeks of age. Production variables were recorded in 13 laying periods of 28 d each, and the data were pooled into three production phases, namely initial (21–32 weeks), peak (33–52 weeks) and post-peak (53–72 weeks).3. No interaction was observed between ME and CP for egg production (EP), food intake (FI), food efficiency (FE), egg weight (EW), egg mass (EM) and body weight gain.4. The EP, EW and EM during the initial phase of production were not affected by diet...