Concentration of digestible threonine in diet on production performance and intestinal morphometry of WL layers

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of digestible threonine in graded concentrations on production performance and mucosal barrier function in layers. A total of 180 layers at 25 weeks of age were randomly distributed into six treatment groups each with five replicates of 6 birds each. The experimental diets were isocaloric with three crude protein(CP) levels i.e. low 13.46% CP(LCP), medium 15.56% CP (MCP) and high 17.05% CP(HCP) and three lysine levels (13.46/0.65%; 15.56/0.60%; 17.00/0.70%) each with 63 and 66% threonine concentrations and were offered to treatment groups for 20 weeks. Increase (p<0.05) in egg production was observed with an increase in protein/lysine level and threonine concentration. Mucin gene (MUC2) expression was increased (p<0.05) in LCP group and was evident at 66% threonine concentrations in LCP and MCP and 63% threonine concentration in HCP. The results of the study concluded that the diet with 13.46% CP and 0.65% lysine at 66% threonine were optimum for layers at 25-44 weeks of age.