Artificial Neural Networks to Predict Egg-Production Traits in Commercial Laying Breeder Hens

In recent years, egg production has had an intense growth in Brazil, and Brazilian egg consumption per capita has significantly increased in the last decade. To reduce sanitary and financial risks, decisions regarding the production and health status of the flock must be made based on objective criteria. Our aim was to determine the main "input" variables for the prediction of egg production performance in commercial laying breeder flocks using an ANN model. The software NeuroShellClassifier and NeuroShell Predictor were used to build the ANN. A total of 26 egg-production traits were selected as input variables and eight as output variables. A database of 44,120 Excel cells was generated. For the training and validation of the models, 74.9% and 25.1% of the data were used, respectively. The accuracy of the ANN models was calculated and compared using the analysis of coefficient of multiple determination (R2), mean squared error (MSE), and an assessment of uniform scatter in the residual plots. The models for the outputs "weekly egg production," "weekly incubated egg,", "accumulated commercial egg," and "viability" showed an R2 greater than 0.8. Other models yielded R2 values lower than 0.8. The ANN predicts adequately eight egg-production traits in the breeders of commercial laying hens. The method is an option for data management analysis in the egg industry, providing estimates of the relative contribution of each input variable to the outputs.