Replacement of Corn with Millet and the Effect of Animal Fat (Tallow) in Laying Hens' Diet

Two experiments were designed and conducted to evaluate the effect of tallow and the nutritional value of millet and the effect of substituting millet for corn on the performance of laying hens. In the first experiment, the nitrogen corrected true metabolizable energy (TMEn) of tallow and millet was determined. Also the digestibility of dry matter (DM), protein, fat and crude fiber of millet was determined using the Sibbald's method. In the second experiment, with a completely randomized design and in a factorial arrangement, the effect of different levels of substitution of corn (0.0, 25, 50 and 75%), introduction of tallow at various amounts of 0, 3 and 6 percent, and also the effect of processing millet (ground and unground) on the diet of HY-Line layers from 26 to 38 weeks of age were studied. The criteria used were egg production rate, egg weight, egg output, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio. The results from the first experiment showed that screening millet increased its true metabolizable energy. Furthermore, crude fiber digestibility increased as a result of introducing fat into the diet (p<0.05). The results from the second experiment revealed that grinding millet had no significant effect on the performance of laying hens, but feed conversion ratio tended to improve in diets containing ground millet. Substitution of any amount of millet for corn significantly improved egg weight, egg output, and feed intake (P<0.05). Introduction of tallow by 6% significantly increased feed intake (P<0.05) too.