THE EFFECT OF DIETARY FERMACTO ON LAYER HEN PERFORMANCE

An experiment was conducted to determine the efficacy of Fermacto 500 (FER) as a nutritional aid in alleviating protein insufficiency caused by a decrease in ingredient protein quality in diets for laying hens. Egg production, egg weight, egg output, shell weight, and shell surfa ce density were not affected by dietary treatments. Young hens fed FER produced a higher percentage of extra large eggs. Inclusion of FER im proved feed conversion for young and old hens. Statistically significa nt differences were not detected in protein digestibility, though valu es were consistently prolonged and determined metabolizable energy val ues of diets were higher when FER was included in the diet. Our result s demonstrate that, under conditions of this study, inclusion of FER a t 0.2% improved feed utilization, and this was associated with feed st aying longer in the digestive tract.