ABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to evaluate filtered water for the intake of laying hens. One hundred commercial laying hens with 30 weeks of age were housed in cages with nipple drinkers for 63 days divided in 3 cycles of 21 days each. This study was analyzed as a completely randomized design with 2 treatments: unfiltered water supply and filtered water supply and 10 replicates of 5 hens per pen. Data were taken on the performance percentage of egg production, feed intake and feed gain ratio (kg/kg and kg/dozen), bacteriological analyses of fecal and total coliform in the water, egg quality specific gravity, egg weight, egg mass and eggshell percentage. These data were submitted to analyses of variance and F Test at 5% of significance. The hens fed filtered water showed higher egg percentage, greater number of eggs per hen, higher egg mass and better feed-gain ratio The egg quality was not influenced by the treatments. The analyses showed that the water supplied by the purification system improved the bacteriological quality of the water used to feed the hens.
KEY WORDS
Chickens; performance; egg quality; water quality
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Médias, nas linhas, seguidas de letras diferentes diferem estatisticamente pelo teste F (P < 0,05).