I don't mean to seem to belittle, I really am interested in the research. Not enough is done involving "non-production" birds, whether those be the production red hybrids on the laying side, or the Cx and siblings on the table side. Plenty of us (self included) raise non-specialists because we can breed our own without need to maintain parent lines and multiple flocks. Good data on their dietary needs would be useful, to see if the studies bear out the theories, the reasonable inferences and the extensions by analogy.
However, just saying that a bird which performs "less" needs "less" isn't really helpful in determining whether the savings one achieves from feeding "less" (whether in quantity, nutritional density, or both) makes up for the loss in production. By the top line metric, we should all have a bunch of red jungle fowl - they need even less to sustain peak production...
The time frame of the study is also of interest, as a number of studies have come out suggesting that chickens can - for some nutritional components - continue to perform in spite of dietary deficiency for some period of time in spite of a known lack in the diet. How long, and how inpacted of course depends on both the vitamin and the deficiency.
This post started with some very specific figures, many of which can't be assayed at home, and some of which don't appear on the typical EU feed bag. VERY interested in how they are arrived it. For instance, is the relatively low crude protein number offset in part by use of synthetic amino acids (as the EU tends to do, particularly DL-Met and L-Lys), or by feed formulation inclusive of ingredients with relatively high levels of those critical aminos? What's the target MKE of the feed, expected rates of consumption?
What metrics are being measured for purposes of comparison? Do you have a nul hypothesis, or a test group on a 'Standard" feed (and how is that defined?) etc.
Is this a diet for cage kept, housed (both of which feed can be strictly controlled), pastured, or free ranged birds (both of which can potentially supplement the feed with the contents of the areas in which they graze? Were differences seen in the relative performance of transylvanians, plymouth rocks, orpingtons, australorps, leghorns, andalusians, etc, or were the numbers simply averaged??? and by transalvanians, do you mean naked necked? If so, there's a big difference between an NN producing maybe 100 medium eggs a year and an australorp producing about 250 large eggs a year.
Details matter. We'd love some data.
