Effects of dietary protein, energy and β-mannanase on laying performance, egg quality, and ileal amino acid digestibility in laying hens.

β-mannan is a nonstarch polysaccharide found in hulled and dehulled soybeans that can survive drying-toasting phase of processing soybeans and have antinutritive effects in poultry. β-mannanase is an active enzyme (endohydrolase) that can hydrolyze β-mannan to reduce its antinutritional effects. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of β-mannanase supplementation in low energy/protein diets on egg production, egg quality, and apparent ileal digestibility of the dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), and amino acids in 21-week-old Single Comb White Leghorn hens (Hy-Line W-36). A total of 192 hens (8 replicates of 6 hens per treatment) for a production study (Exp. 1) and a total of 64 hens (8 replicates of 2 hens per treatment) for a digestibility study (Exp. 2) were randomly allocated to 4 experimental treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement. Four dietary treatments were control (CS) based on corn and 44% CP soybean meal (ME: 2,850 kcal/kg CP: 18.5%) and CS-low energy/protein (CSL) (ME: 2,750 kcal/kg CP: 17.5%), with or without 0.05% β-mannanase enzyme. Hens were fed the experimental diets for 14 d for the digestibility study and 8 wk for the production study. Hen-day egg production (HDEP), weekly feed intake, FCR, and biweekly egg quality parameters were measured. Significant interaction on feed intake (P < 0.01) was observed between energy/protein and enzyme. At 3, 6 and 8 wk, the feed intake and FCR of CSL with enzyme were significantly lower than those of CSL without enzymes. The main effects indicated that birds fed diets without inclusion of β-mannanase had higher feed intake than those fed diets with enzymes at 4, 7, and 8 wk. The inclusion of β-mannanase significantly increased (P < 0.05) HDEP at 2, 3, 5, and 7 wk. However, there was no significant effect of nutrient density or enzyme supplementation on egg quality parameters. The digestibility study showed that the inclusion of β-mannanase significantly improved (P < 0.01) apparent ileal digestibility of lysine, histidine and tryptophan in the diet. The results of these experiments indicate that supplementation of β-mannanase could reduce the feed intake and FCR and improve HDEP and apparent ileal digestibility of key amino acids in corn/soy diets fed to laying hens.