Crop Science and Agriculture

Poultry is one of the fastest growing and most promising industries with the brightest future in our country. Since 2008, the local broiler breeder industry produces only 35% of the day-old broiler chicks used by the industry and the remaining covered by importing fertile eggs. Experiments have demonstrated clear effect of temperature on broiler breeders’ egg composition. The objectives of this experiment were: (1) To examine eff ects of four diff erent ambient temperatures 21, 26, 29 and 32 oC on the response of the egg composition from laying broiler breeders, (2) To examine their response of four dietary lysine concentrations (35, 50, 65 and 90 g/kg crude protein-wheat-based that contained 151 g/kg crude protein concentration), and (3) To examine whether there were temperature×lysine concentration interactions in the responses of broiler breeders. Two hundred and twenty-four (224) 29-week old hens (308 Ross Broiler Breeder) randomly allocated to 16 identical pens within

four environmentally controlled rooms in a facility. A split-plot design was used in which four main plots (rooms) kept at four constant temperatures. Increasing temperature gave linear decreases in the proportion of shell in the eggs (P=0.049). There were no signifi cant diff erences (P>0.05) between the diff erent lysine concentration levels in any variable of egg composition.

Similarly, there were no consistent (P>0.05) temperature×lysine concentration interactions.