Four commercial strains of Single Comb White Leghorn hens were either forcemolted by standard methods or force-rested by means of a low-salt diet (no added salt) at 66 weeks of age. After an 8-week molt/rest period, all hens were fed the same standard layer diet for an additional 28 weeks.During the resting period, egg production of the hens fed the low-salt diet declined gradually to a daily low of 13.0 percent after 38 days while the force-molted hens were completely out of production in 7 days.The low-salt treatment adversely affected postmolt hen-day and hen-house egg production, feed efficiency, egg shell thickness, and resulted in more broken eggs (P<.05) as compared to the forcemolt treatment. Body weight gain, egg specific gravity, and egg weight were also depressed by the low-salt treatment, although not to a significant extent.The poorer postmolt performance of the hens fed the low-salt diet was believed related to a higher level of sodium in the diet (.13%) than had been calculated (.044%). (

Two hundred forty Leghorn pullets were used in a 168-day 5X2 factorial arrangement to study the effects of 0, 10, 20, 30 or 40% coconut meal and 0 to 10% coconut oil to layer diet on rate of production, efficiency, body weight, egg weight, egg fat level and fatty acid composition of egg fat. With 0% added oil, coconut meal increased rate of egg production, with this rate reaching a peak when 20% meal was added. Coconut oil also increased rate of production and efficiency. Within each oil level group, feed efficiency was directly related to production rate. Birds receiving oil gained 136 gms. per bird while those fed no oil lost 79 gms. Within each oil level group, weight gain was inversely related to the level of coconut meal fed. Egg weight was depressed by feeding coconut meal and increased by coconut oil. Fat content of the egg was not significantly altered by treatment but adding oil increased the level of lauric (C12:0) and myristic (C14:0) acids and decreased the level of stearic (Cl8:0), oleic (C18:l) and linoleic (Cl8:2) acids in the fat.

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