PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF WHITE LEGHORN HENS BASED ON THE TYPE OF HOUSING DURING REARING: FLOOR VERSUS CAGE

Abstract

ABSTRACT Poultry farmers in the southeastern of Mexico consider that the productivity of the hens that comes from rearing on floor has a higher productive performance than reared hens in cages, mainly due to higher percentage of egg laying and lower mortality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the productive performance of the laying hen in relation to the type of rearing. A total of 79680 pullets Bovans White of 17 weeks of age were housed in cages with five pullets cage-1 (405 cm2pullet-1). They were divided in two treatments according to their type of rearing (floor vs cage) with four replicates. The study period was from week 20 to week 40 of age. The variables evaluated were daily (%) and cumulative mortality (%), egg production (%), egg weight (g), feed intake (g pullet d-1), cumulative feed intake (g pullet-1), daily and cumulative egg mass, number of eggs per hen housed, egg loss (%) and productivity index. The variables were analyzed using a randomized block design. It was observed that daily and cumulative mortality, feed intake and egg loss was higher (p< 0.05), while the number of eggs per hen housed and productivity index (p< 0.05) was lower for hens in cages. We conclude that it is possible to associate detriments in the productive performance of laying hens based on the type of housing during its growth phase.

Keywords

• Feed intake
• productive performance
• mortality
• egg production
• rearing method