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Diets calculated to be deficient in dietary salt were fed in a controlled experiment to individually caged chickens in egg production to evaluate the susceptibility of laying hens to less than the National Research Council's (N.R.C.) recommended level, 0.370% salt.The response of 600 laying hens was evaluated on either the control diet, which had 0.500% dietary salt added, or for one of these assumed to be deficient. These diets had either 0.250%, 0.125% or 0.000% dietary salt added to practical diets.Significant declines in egg production resulted for the 0.000% groups. These birds were then returned to the control diet and immediately recovered as measured by egg production rate. Complete recovery was achieved in four weeks. The regression analysis shows that the 0.250% and 0.125% groups also decline in egg production rates as compared to the controls. However, the decline trend in these groups became evident after a delayed period of four to five weeks following treatments.Low dietary salt significantly reduced body weight and feed consumption among layers 56 weeks of age or older. Over 60% of the hens subject to the zero (0.000%) added salt (NaCl) level were in heavy molt during the third week of treatment. The low salt treatments did not have any significant effects on egg weight, egg shell thickness, shell strength or albumen height.

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