Abstract
This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different levels of dried leftover food (DLF) in the diet on feed utilization and egg-laying performance of hens. One hundred sixty-eight, 18 week old Tetra brown commercial layers, were assigned to 7 treatments in a completely randomized design. Each treatment has four replications per treatment with six animals per replication. All the experimental animals were fed diets for 7 weeks. The treatments included 1) control group without DLF, 2) diet with 10% DLF, 3) diet with 20% DLF, 4) diet with 30% DLF, 5) 10% higher protein level of diet with 10% DLF, 6) 20% higher protein level of diet with 20% DLF and 7) 30% higher protein level of diet with 30% DLF. Average daily feed intake (ADFI) tended to be improved with DLF feeding. ADFI of group fed diets with 20% was significantly higher than that of control (p<0.05). Feed conversions of DLFfed groups were higher than that of control. Egg production tended to be higher in groups fed diets with 10% DLF than control diet without significant differences (p>0.05). However, those of groups fed diets containing 20 and 30% DLF were lower than that of control. Supplementing protein source to DLF-containing diets improved egg production (p<0.05). Increasing level of DLF in the diet for layer decreased egg weight and egg mass compared to control without significant differences (p>0.05). Protein supplementation to DLF-containing diets increased egg mass without significant difference (p>0.05). The range of egg cholesterol concentration of DLF-fed groups was 11.94-14.10 mg/g while that of control group was 12.31 mg/g although there was no significant difference among treatments (p>0.05).