Abstract
An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of supplementation of commercial phytase and ${\beta}-glucanase$ to wheat-soybean meal based layer diets. Control (17% CP) and reduced protein (13.5% CP) diets were compared with and without phytase and/or ${\beta}-glucanase$. Reducing dietary crude protein levels reduced the amount of N excreted by laying hens with no adverse affect on egg production or overall feed conversion ratio. There was, however, a slight reduction in average egg weight. When phytase was added to the control protein diets it was possible to reduce the level of dicalcium phosphate in the diet without a loss in performance and daily P output was reduced significantly. When phytase was added to the reduced protein diets, however, there was a dramatic loss in performance in the last four weeks of the study. Supplementation of ${\beta}-glucanase$ to wheat based layer diet did not appear to have beneficial affects in terms of laying performance and reducing nitrogen or phosphorus excretion. Combination of phytase and ${\beta}-glucanase$ had no positive effects on laying performance or reduction of DM, N and P.