ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1624978
Residual Feed Intake in Late-Laying Hens: Immune Function, Metabolic Efficiency, and Feed Utilization Dynamics
Provisionally accepted
- 1China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
- 2Beinongda Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China
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The selection of high feed-efficiency animals is essential to address the increasing global demand for animal-derived products while ensuring sustainability. Residual Feed Intake (RFI), a crucial metric in poultry production, enhances feed utilization, optimizes management strategies, and promotes economic viability and environmental stewardship. However, the mechanisms underlying RFI variation remain inadequately understood. This study examined the regulatory pathways of RFI in 70-week-old Rhode Island Red laying hens through comparative analysis of phenotypic parameters, organ characteristics, and serum biochemical profiles between low-RFI (LRFI) and high-RFI (HRFI) groups. The findings demonstrate that RFI functions as a reliable indicator for feed efficiency selection, with LRFI hens demonstrating enhanced immune modulation and metabolic homeostasis while maintaining equivalent egg production performance.These results establish fundamental insights for understanding RFI regulatory mechanisms and developing precision breeding strategies for feed-efficient laying hens.
Keywords: residual feed intake, late laying hens, Immune function, metabolic function, feed efficiency
Received: 08 May 2025; Accepted: 19 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gao, Mao, Xuan, Ma, Wu and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zhouyang Gao, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
Guiyun Xu, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
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