Objective This experiment was conducted to study the effects of feeding Hongqu glutinous rice wine grains (HGG) diet on the performance and egg quality of laying hens.
Method A total of 192 38-week-old Hy-Line Brown laying hens were randomly divided into 4 groups with 6 replicates per group and 8 laying hens per replicate. The basal diet of experimental groups I-III were replaced (equivalent substitution) the soybean meal (dehulled soybean meal) with 4%, 8%, and 12% HGG, respectively, and the control group was fed basal diet. After 14 days pre-test period, enter the formal feeding experiment period which lasted for 42 days.
Result The results showed as follows: 1) There was 46.18% crude protein, 10.46% starch, 8.75% ether extract, 52.47% protein digestibility, and rich in amino acids (especially 2.43% sulfur-containing amino acids) in HGG based on dry matter. 2) The dietary 4%～12% HGG had no significant effect on the production performance of laying hens (P＞0.05), while increased the feed intake of the layers to a certain extent (especially under the heat stress environment) (P＞0.05). The dietary 4%～12% HGG had no significant effect on the egg shape index, eggshell strength and eggshell thickness (P＞0.05), while the egg yolk color was significantly increased after feeding 8%～12% HGG dietary for 28 days (P＜0.05).
Conclusion It can be concluded that HGG is a kind of high quality protein feed, which could replace soybean meal in the diet of laying hens. It had no significant effect on performance of laying hens, but could improve the yolk color and egg quality to a certain extent.
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