Individual egg production of Hy-Line Brown hens during the early laying phase in response to dietary crude protein levels
Description
This dataset contains the raw data of a study conducted from May 2004 until January 2005 in a Poultry Research Unit belonging to Tibaitatá Research Center of the Colombian Corporation for Agricultural Research (AGROSAVIA, formerly known as CORPOICA) located in the municipality of Mosquera, Colombia (4º41՛07՛՛ N, 74º12՛17՛՛ W). The aim was to investigate the effects of graded increase of crude protein (CP) in the diet on individual performance of brown hens up to 54 weeks of age. Forty Hy-Line Brown hens, 18 weeks old, were divided into five treatments of eight replicates each (individual animal) and were fed diets formulated to have five different CP concentrations: 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18% CP with the same energy content. For each experimental diet, the contents of lysine, methionine + cysteine, threonine and tryptophan were maintained at minimum requirement concentrations by supplying synthetic amino acids. Clutch characteristics were recorded (e.g. number, length, patterns, egg weight, etc.) and individual egg production curves modeled according to the non-linear model by Grossman and Koops (2001). Clutch was defined as the unstopped length of individual egg production on a daily basis. Body weight (BW) was recorded on a weekly basis to account for changes in BW during the experimental period. Dataset is split in four raw data components: 1. Feed intake (weekly means by treatment), 2. Individual body weights and 3. Individual egg production on a weekly basis, and 4. Individual clutch data on a daily basis. For statistical analyses purposes, the meaning of the label "Week" may differ depending on the txt file chosen. In the case of intake, BW, and clutch data, it refers to weeks of age, whereas for individual egg curves data that means week of production from the onset of egg laying cycle. In the clutch data file (HyLineBrown_IndClutches.txt), the star symbol "*" indicate a day with no egg laid and this accounts for at least one-day pause between two consecutive clutches. Within-clutch data (on a daily basis) is filled with egg weight values. In this repository, supplementary files are also included in pdf format as follows: 1. The total amino acids profile of the diets (Table S1 appendix) as analyzed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography according to AOAC official method 914.12 (AOAC, 2005), 2. Plot of residual values of total amino acid contents (%) as calculated in the diet formulation (predicted) and actual values as analyzed by HPLC (observed; Figure S1 appendix), 3. Individual egg laying patterns recorded as clutch waves (CW´s) on a weekly basis (Figure S2 appendix), and 4. A comparison of hens’ performance provided by Hyline Brown commercial management guides: 2002-2004 vs. 2018, respectively.