No abstract

An experiment was conducted using 504 Hy-Line W-36 Single Comb White Leghorn hens (69 wk of age) randomly assigned to 1 of 7 treatments. These treatments consisted of a 47% corn:47% soy hulls diet (C:SH) fed ad libitum; a 94% corn diet fed at a rate of 36.3, 45.4, or 54.5 g/hen per day (CORN 36, CORN 45, and CORN 54, respectively); and a 94% corn distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) diet fed at the same rates as the previous corn diets (DDGS 36, DDGS 45, and DDGS 54, respectively) during the molt period of 28 d. The intent was to feed the DDGS diets for 28 d; however, all hens on these diets had very low feed intakes and greater than anticipated BW loss. Thus, they were switched to a 16% CP corn-soybean meal layer diet on d 19 of the molt period. At d 28, hens on all treatments were fed the same corn-soybean meal layer diet for 39 wk (73 to 112 wk of age). All DDGS diets and the CORN 36 diet resulted in total cessation of egg production during the molt period and egg production of hens fed the CORN 45, CORN 54, and C:SH diets had decreased to 3 and 4%, respectively, by d 28. Body weight loss during the 28-d molt period ranged from 14% for the CORN 54 diet to approximately 23% for the 3 DDGS diets. Postmolt egg production (5 to 43 wk) was higher for hens fed the DDGS molt diets than those fed the corn diets. There were no consistent differences in egg mass, egg-specific gravity, feed efficiency, or layer feed consumption among molt treatments for the postmolt period. These results indicate that limit feeding corn diet and DDGS diet in non-feed-withdrawal molt programs will yield long-term postmolt performance that is comparable to that observed by ad libitum feeding a C:SH diet.

an experiment was conducted to determine the efficacy of a phytase enzyme (optiphos, JBs United Inc., sheridan, In) in corn-soybean meal diets fed to laying hens from 32 to 62 wk of age. Hens were fed diets consisting of a negative control diet containing 0.105% nonphytate P (nPP), a positive control (0.45% nPP), a marginal nPP level (0.20%), or supplemental phytase enzyme at 150, 250, or 15,000 phytase units (FTU)/kg added to the negative control diet. The negative control dietary treatment containing 0.105% nPP was terminated at 39 wk of age because of a severe reduction in egg production compared with all other treatments. no significant differences were observed among the other dietary treatments in BW, egg production, egg weight, egg mass, feed intake, or Fe when these parameters were evaluated over the duration of the experiment. no differences in tibia ash were seen at 62 wk of age when compared among the 5 treatments. excreta P was much higher (P < 0.05) for hens fed the 0.45% nPP diet when compared with all other diets. a diet containing 0.105% nPP and as little as 150 FTU/kg of the supplemental phytase enzyme was as efficacious as a diet containing 0.45% nPP for long-term laying hen performance. In addition, feeding low levels of nPP with supplementation of the phytase enzyme would decrease the amount of P excreted by the bird. a very high level (15,000 FTU/kg) of phytase enzyme was well tolerated and poses no safety concerns.

It is frequently a difficult task to differentiate Actinomyces bovis from "anaerobic diphtheroids" of questionable pathogenicity. Diphtheroids, isolated from normal and pathological tissues, resemble A. bovis morphologically and in some normal saline, washed, centrifuged, and resus-234