• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.213-220
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• 2002

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding probiotics on the egg quality and excretal noxious gas in laying hens. One hundred forty four, 36 weeks old ISA brown commercial layer, were employed in a 28 d feeding trial with a 7 d adjustment period. Dietary treatments are 1) control(basal diet), 2) PB0.3(basal diet+0.3% probiotics), 2) PB0.6(basal diet+0.6% probiotics). For overall period, hen-day egg production, egg weight and egg shell breaking strength tended to increase (P>0.05) by dietary probiotic supplementation. Egg shell thickness was improved by supplementation of probiotics(linear effect, P$<$0.01). Diets PB0.3 and PB0.6 improved the yolk color compared to control diet(linear effect, P$<$0.02). As supplementation level of probiotics increased in the diets, egg yolk index tended to increase(linear effect, P$<$0.04). $NH_3$-N concentration in excreta fed PB0.6 diet was significantly (P$<$0.04) lower than either control or PB0.3 diet. In conclusion, supplementing probiotics to a Corn-SBM diet for laying hens increased egg shell thickness, yolk color and decreased egg yolk index, and decreased excretal $NH_3$-N concentration.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 2003

An effort was made to assess comparative production performance in broiler chickens fed diets containing solvent extracted cottonseed meal (CSM) processed from BT and Parental Non-BT lines. Processed meal of national check and commercial produce cottonseeds were also used for comparison. The free gossypol contents were 0.02, 0.02, 0.44 and 0.03% in meals of BT, Parental Non-BT, national check and commercial produce cottonseeds, respectively. Day-old broiler chicks (n=243) were divided to 27 groups of 9 each. Nine dietary treatments (iso-nitrogenous, 23% CP and iso-caloric, 2,800 kcal ME/kg) were formulated viz., D1 (control, soybean meal-SBM based), D2 and D3 (BT CSM at 10% of diet with and without additional iron), D4 and D5 (non-BT CSM with and without additional iron), D6 and D7 (national check CSM with or without additional iron), and D8 and D9 (commercial produce CSM with or without additional iron at 2 ppm for every 1 ppm of free gossypol, respectively). Each dietary treatment was offered to three replicated groups up to 6 weeks of age. At the end of 6 weeks of age, 10 birds were taken out randomly from each treatment and were sacrificed to study carcass traits, organs' yield and histo-pathological changes in vital organs. The broiler chickens received CSM processed from BT (D2, 1,753 g and D3, 1,638 g) and Parental Non-BT (D4, 1,653 g and D5, 1,687 g) with or without additional Fe grew at same rate as observed in soybean meal (solvent ext.) based diet (D1, 1,676 g). The feed intake and feed conversion efficiency (feed: gain) in these dietary treatments (BT, non-BT line based diets) also did not differ significantly (p>0.05) from control diet. Similar observation was also observed in dietary treatments (D8 and D9) containing solvent extracted cottonseed meal of commercial produce origin. However, a decrease (p<0.05) in body weight gain and feed intake was observed in D6 containing national check CSM with high gossypol content. Addition of Fe in the diet (D7) improved (p<0.05) feed intake and weight gain but not to the extent as observed in diets containing BT, parental non-BT, and commercial produce CSM or control. However, any type of CSM did not affect feed conversion efficiency when fed with or without additional iron. The carcass characteristics in terms of dressing percentage, liver weight and heart weight was not significantly (p>0.05) different between the treatments. The eviscerated yields emanated from diets containing either BT, non-BT or commercial produce were statistically similar to control. However, eviscerated yield of broilers fed national check CSM with or without iron supplementation was lower (p<0.05) than BT cotton with Fe supplementation and commercial produce CSM. The study envisaged that BT, parental non-BT and commercial produce solvent extracted cottonseed meal can be included at 10% in soybean meal based broiler diet replacing soybean meal and rice bran without additional iron.