Volltext-Downloads (blau) und Frontdoor-Views (grau)
  • search hit 6 of 1396
Back to Result List

Particle Size Distribution of Organic Complete Diets for Laying Hens during Feed Offering

  • Complete diets for laying hens are usually offered in meal form. This form initially promotes the laying hens’ natural feed intake behavior and allows them to satisfy their pecking behavior. At the same time, it can also cause difficulties, because it consists of different particles and is not a homogeneous unit. A homogeneous mixture is essential to ensure that each laying hen in the flock can meet its nutritional needs. If feed exhibits a wide particle size distribution, this can promote feed segregation during transport and selective feed intake behavior of laying hens. These two processes sometimes lead to significant differences between the composition of the feed produced and the composition of the feed that is finally ingested by the laying hens. Multi-stage sampling can be used to investigate progressing differences in feed composition. In this study, samples of different complete diets for laying hens (n = 76) were collected from ten organic farms in Germany to examine their particle size distributions (dry sieve analysis). Samples were taken at four different locations (V1 = loading, V2 = silo, V3 = at the beginning of the feed chain, V4 = at the end of the feed chain) in each farm. There was a tendency for V1 and V2 to be characterized by high proportions of particles between 1400 and 3150 µm (V1 = 61.2%, V2 = 43.5%). V3 and V4 consisted mainly of particles of size 500–800 µm and 200–400 µm, respectively. The lowest proportions across all variants were in the range above 3150 µm (V1 = 2.20%, V2 = 1.30%, V3 = 1.00%, V4 = 0.400%) and between 400 and 500 µm (V1 = 2.50%, V2 = 4.50%, V3 = 5.70%, V4 = 6.60%). The mean value comparison of the proportions of sieve mesh sizes from 200 to 1000 µm resulted in: V1 < V2 < V3 < V4; and of sieve mesh sizes between 1400 and 2000 µm in: V1 > V2 > V3 > V4. This observation can be explained by segregation of the feed during transport and a selective feeding behavior of the laying hens. However, trends were discontinuous and varied between the farms. Deviations from the guideline values were found in particular for particle sizes in the range of 1000 to 1400 µm.

Download full text files

Export metadata

Additional Services

Search Google Scholar

Statistics

frontdoor_oas
Metadaten
Author:Dietrich Nunnenkamp, Eyleen Bierschenk, Heiner Westendarp, Petra WolfORCiD
Title (English):Particle Size Distribution of Organic Complete Diets for Laying Hens during Feed Offering
URN:urn:nbn:de:bsz:959-opus-55537
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12020272
ISSN:2077-0472
Parent Title (English):Agriculture
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2022
Release Date:2024/03/22
Tag:Laying hens; Organic; Particle size; Sieve analysis
Volume:12
Issue:2
Article Number:272
Page Number:9
Faculties:Fakultät AuL
DDC classes:600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 630 Landwirtschaft, Veterinärmedizin
Review Status:Veröffentlichte Fassung/Verlagsversion
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International