Because dietary nitrogen intake affects nitrogen content in manure, diet management has been recognized as a means to reduce ammonia emissions from poultry operations. The objectives of the present research were 1) to determine the extent to which the CP content of laying diets can be reduced, based on performance criteria, and 2) to determine how ash:nitrogen ratios of manure, eggs, and hens are affected by dietary protein changes. Egg-type hens were fed equal daily amounts of essential amino acids in diets that provided 13, 15, or 17 g of protein/d. Each diet was fed to 20 hens, with 2 hens/cage. The planned digestible lysine intake was 0.71 g/hen per day. Ratios of other digestible amino acids to lysine were methionine plus cysteine, 0.83; threonine, 0.68; and isoleucine, 0.94. The experiment began when hens were 29 wk old and continued until they were 57 wk old. Egg production averaged approximately 90%, and daily protein intake caused no effects on egg production or grams of egg per hen per day. Feed intake was higher for hens fed 13 g of protein than for hens in the other 2 treatments (P < 0.01). Average feed intake for the experiment was approximately 95 g/d. Composition of the eggs was not affected by protein intake. Average values were DM, 30.5%; ash, 31.0% of DM; and nitrogen, 6.31% of DM. The average manure DM production was 25.9 g/hen per day, with an ash content of 25.5% of DM. Manure nitrogen content ranged from 3.98% of DM for hens fed 13 g of protein to 5.68% for those fed 17 g of protein (P < 0.01). A method is outlined that uses the analysis of fresh manure and manure leaving the poultry operation to estimate the loss of nitrogen as ammonia.
Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.