Egg weight responses to dietary supplementation with sunflower oil and rice pollard

Abstract

Maximum egg weight was not attained by feeding a layer diet based on wheat, sorghum and meat meal to White Leghorn x Australorp pullets and second year hens, but substantial increases were obtained by substituting sunflower oil or rice pollard on an equi-energetic basis. This effect was most marked when high dietary concentrations of rice pollard were used. The improvement in egg weight was associated with increases in dietary linoleic acid concentration and intake, but not with the intakes of other major nutrients, including metabolizable energy and essential amino acids. It appears that the linoleic acid content of rice pollard was the major, if not necessarily the only, factor responsible for the observed beneficial responses in egg weight.