The effect of dietary energy level on the voluntary calorie intake of laying birds

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Abstract
This paper summarises evidence taken from the literature to show the effect of dietary energy level on the voluntary food intake of laying birds. Although groups of pullets offered different diets tend to adjust consumption so as to maintain the same calorie intake, this adjustment is imperfect in the majority of cases. Thus birds fed high energy diets usually “over‐consume” calories and gain more in weight than birds fed lower energy diets. The degree of over‐consumption observed when a particular strain is offered a range of diets of differing energy content is correlated with the characteristic calorie intake of that strain (r = 0.667). Strains with characteristically high energy intakes adjust their food consumption to compensate for differences in energy content of the diet less efficiently than the small strains which have characteristically low calorie intakes. From the relationships demonstrated, a formula is developed which predicts the expected daily calorie intake for any level of dietary energy, given a knowledge of the calorie intake of the strain when fed some standard diet. The use of this information in the formulation of diets designed to minimise the cost of feeding is illustrated by an example.