The effects of dietary fat and bird age on the weights of eggs and egg components in the laying hen

Abstract

1. A low‐fat diet or an isoenergetic and isonitrogenous high‐fat diet containing 55 g maize oil/kg were fed to laying hens at different stages during the laying year in two experiments. 2. Feeding the high‐fat diet to young hens resulted in a rapid increase of 2.5 g in egg weight, made up of increases in both yolk and albumen weights. 3. Switching the diets at 50 weeks caused changes in egg weight that were accounted for entirely by changes in egg albumen weight. 4. Feeding the high‐fat diet from 46 weeks in a second experiment increased egg and egg albumen weights by 1.26 and 1.34 g respectively. 5. The increase in egg weight with age was associated with a greater increase in the proportion of yolk, at the expense of albumen, compared to egg weight increases related to dietary fat. 6. It is concluded that dietary fatty acids increase egg weight by a mechanism different from that causing age‐related increases in weight and that the mechanism involves a stimulation of oviduct protein synthesis.