Relationship between Food Consumption in Growing Chicks and their Residual Food Consumption as Adult Laying Hens

Abstract

With the aim of studying the correlation between food consumption in very early life (0–5 weeks) and percent residual food consumption (PRFC) in laying hens, recorded from 16 to 40 weeks of age, a chick experiment was carried out. The experimental chicks were from a two-directional selection experiment, in which a duplicate hatch to the second generation was performed. Two of the lines in the selection experiment were developed for low PRFC and one line for high PRFC. Mean PRFC in the chick experiment were in close accordance with the mean PRFC of the corresponding lines in the selection experiment. There was significantly higher food consumption in the first 5 weeks of age in the high PRFC line compared to one of the low PRFC lines. Moderate phenotypic correlations were found between early food consumption and PRFC as adults, which theoretically permit the possibility of using food consumption in very young chicks as a selection criterion when preselecting for PRFC.

Key Words:

• chick experiment
• food records
• correlations