• Animal Bioscience
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• v.34 no.3_spc
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• pp.443-448
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• 2021

Objective: Astaxanthin is a natural super antioxidant. The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of astaxanthin rich Phaffia rhodozyma (PR) supplementation in diets on laying production performance, egg quality, antioxidant defenses and immune defenses in laying hens. Methods: A total of five hundred and twelve 60-week-old Lohmann Brown laying hens (2,243±12 g) were randomly assigned to four groups, each including 4 replicates with 32 birds per replicate. Astaxanthin rich PR was added to corn-soybean meal diets to produce experimental diets containing 0 (Control), 800 mg/kg, 1,200 mg/kg, and 1,600 mg/kg PR, respectively. The astaxanthin content in the diet was 0.96 mg/kg, 1.44 mg/kg and 1.92 mg/kg respectively. Results: Results showed that dietary PR supplementation tended to increase daily feed intake (p = 0.0512). There was no effect of astaxanthin rich PR on Haugh units, albumen height, egg shape index, eggshell strength, and eggshell thickness at weeks 6 (p>0.05). However, egg yolk color was significantly improved (p<0.05). In addition, astaxanthin rich PR supplementation significantly increased serum glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase activity (p<0.05), increased serum immunoglobulin G content (p<0.05), and reduced malondialdehyde content (p<0.05) in laying hens. Conclusion: In conclusion, astaxanthin rich PR can improve the color of egg yolk, enhance the antioxidant defenses, and regulate the immune function.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.1065-1076
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• 2024

Objective: This study aimed to assess the effects of dietary mulberry leaves on the growth, production performance, gut microbiota, and immunological parameters of poultry and livestock. Methods: The PubMed, Embase, and Scopus databases were systematically analyzed to identify pertinent studies up to December 2022. The effects of mulberry leaf diet was assessed using the weighted mean difference, and the 95% confidence interval was calculated using a random-effects model. Results: In total, 18 studies that sampled 2,335 poultry and livestock were selected for analysis. Mulberry leaves improved the average daily gain and reduced the feed/meat ratio in finishing pigs, and the average daily gain and average daily feed intake in chicken. In production performance, mulberry leaves lowered the half carcass weight, slaughter rate, and loin eye area in pigs, and the slaughter rate in chickens. Regarding meat quality in pigs, mulberry leaves reduced the cooked meat percentage, shear force, crude protein, and crude ash, and increased the 24 h pH and water content. In chickens, it increased the drip loss, shear force, 45 min and 24 h pH, crude protein, and crude ash. Mulberry leaves also affect the abundances of gut microbiota, including Bacteroides, Prevotella, Megamonas, Escherichia-Shigella, Butyricicoccus, unclassified Ruminococcaceae, Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, and Escherichia coli in poultry and livestock. Mulberry leaves at different doses were associated with changes in antioxidant capacity in chickens, and immune organ indexes in pigs. With respect to egg quality, mulberry leaves at different doses improved the shell strength, yolk color, eggshell thickness, and eggshell weight. However, moderate doses diminished the egg yolk ratio and the egg yolk moisture content. Conclusion: In general, dietary mulberry leaves improved the growth, production performance, and immunological parameters in poultry and livestock, although the effects varied at different doses.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.205-211
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• 2011

This work was carried out to investigate the effect of the induced molting diet based on wheat bran on the postmolt performance of layers. Two hundred White Leghorn layers (65-old-wk) with over 80% egg production were used for 8 weeks in this work. Treatments were non-molt control (CO), fasting treatment for 10 days (FW), molt treatment with used molting diet for 4 wk (UM), molt treatment with molting diet based on corn-wheat bran for 4 wk (CW), and molt treatment with molting diet based on wheat bran for 4 wk (WM) as 5 treatments (4 replications/treatment and 10 birds/replication). Feed intake decreased at molting treatments at first weeks and increased after the 3rd week compared to control (P<0.05). Body weight (BW) loss were 18.6% of initial BW at first week in FW treatment, and were 11.4, 14.2 and 17.4% in UM, CW and WM treatments at 4th weeks (P<0.05). Egg production decreased at 1 week in molt treatment and stopped at 2 week in FW, whereas, other molting treatments didn't stop laying eggs. The birds started to lay egg at 4 week in FW and recovered at 5 week in other molting treatments. Egg quality (eggshell thickness, eggshell breaking strength, haugh unit) was high in molting treatments compared with control at 8th weeks (P<0.05). Finally, molting diet based on wheat bran affected BW loss and egg quality such as eggshell thickness, eggshell breaking strength and haugh unit.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.61-67
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• 2015

The objective of this experiment was to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of herbal medication (HM) on laying performance, blood parameter, and immune response in laying hens. A total of 800 Hy-Line Brown laying hens of 60 weeks of age were randomly allotted to one of four dietary treatments with four replicates per treatment. Three additional diets were prepared by adding 0.5, 1.0 or 1.5 % of HM to the basal diet. Feeding trial lasted 7 weeks under 16L:8D lighting regimen. The diet and water were available ad libitum. Hen-day egg production in groups fed diets with 0.5% and 1.5% HM was significantly (P<0.05) higher than that of control. Feed conversion ratio in group fed diet with 0.5% HM showed the lowest value (P<0.05). Egg weight, feed intake, broken and shell-less egg production were not affected HM supplementation levels. Egg yolk color was significantly greater in all HM supplemented groups than basal treatment. However, eggshell strength, eggshell thickness, eggshell color, and Haugh units were not affected by HM supplementation level. There were no differences in leukocyte counts among the treatments. Plamsa IgM concentration was (P<0.05) higher in all HM treated groups. In conclusion, dietary HM improved egg production, and IgM of laying hens.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.799-806
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• 2008

This experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of feeding limestone to high and low Ca layer diets on laying performance and eggshell quality in laying hens. Five hundred and twenty-eight HyLine brown layer allotted to six treatments consisting of high and low Ca diets. Limestone added to two kinds of basal diet with 1, 2 and 3 fold compared to conventional diet. Egg production was not different regardless Ca level and amount of added limestone in overall periods. However, the increment of egg observed in high Ca diet and added 10g limestone group during later period. Ca and limestone intake were increased as increasing feeding limestone. Eggshell strength and thickness were improved in high Ca consumption group. It was concluded that feeding Ca sources to conventional diets was helpful improving eggshell quality and reducing feed cost per egg mass by increasing proportion of Ca intake.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.217-224
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• 2006

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of food-waste(FW) between weeks(0, 1, 2, 3, 4 week) and additive levels(0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 20%) on egg production and egg qualify in laying hens. One hundred sixty two White Leghorn laying hens at fifty weeks of age were used for this work. There was no significant difference on feed intake, egg production, and egg weight among all treatments. But, 20% FW group was decreased at 1, 2, and 3 week on egg production and it was recovered at 4 weeks(p<0.05). There was no difference on the eggshell thickness and egg yolk index among all treatments. However, eggshell breaking strength were $4.13kg/cm^2\;and\;4.04kg/cm^2$ at 3 week and 4 week, individually, and there was difference on eggshell breaking strength(p<0.05). Haugh unit and egg yolk color were high at 20% FW group as 92.3 and 9.4, individually, and there was shown the significant increasing in weeks and additive levels(p<0.05). Conclusionally, 20% FW group was decreased on egg production, while 5% FW group was maintained on egg production, and haugh unit and egg yolk color were cleary developed. Therefore, if the nutrients balance of FW diets were controlled, FW diets will be used with one of the valuable feed sources.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1028-1033
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• 2010

The effects of delta-aminolevulinic acid (DALA) or chito-oligosaccharide (COS) in layer diets on production performance, egg quality and hematological characteristics were investigated in this 8-week trial. Two hundred and seventy 27-week-old (Hy-Line brown) layers were randomly assigned to 5 treatments with 9 replications per treatment. Dietary treatments were i) Control (basal diet); ii) DALA1 (basal diet+DALA 2 mg/kg); iii) DALA2 (basal diet+DALA 4 mg/kg); iv) COS1 (basal diet+COS 100 mg/kg) and v) COS2 (basal diet+COS 200 mg/kg). In this study, no significant difference was observed in feed intake and egg shell quality (eggshell breaking strength and egg shell thickness) among treatments. The inclusion of DALA increased egg production during the first 4 weeks. Egg weight was increased in both DALA (quadratic, p<0.05) and COS (linear, p<0.05) treatments compared with the control treatment. Laying hens fed the DALA treatment had an increased yolk color unit (quadratic, p<0.05) and haugh unit (linear, p<0.05) compared with the control group. Similarly, these characteristics were also affected by COS treatments, with both values being linearly increased (p<0.05) in COS treatments compared with the control treatment. Additionally, birds fed DALA treatments significantly increased (quadratic, p<0.05) the number of RBC, WBC and lymphocytes compared with the control treatment. Dietary DALA supplementation linearly increased (p<0.05) the serum iron concentration at the end of the 8th week. The inclusion of COS increased (linear, p<0.05) the concentration of RBC, WBC and lymphocytes compared with the control treatment. In conclusion, dietary DALA at the lower dosage (2 mg/kg) could exert better effects in laying hens than higher dosage (4 mg/kg). Birds fed DALA supplemented diet had an increased iron availability, egg weight, eggshell quality and immunity. Moreover, the inclusion of COS (200 mg/kg) can increase egg weight, eggshell quality and immunity in laying hens. Therefore, both the utilization of COS and DALA could be considered as a new strategy for optimizing egg quality and health condition of laying hens.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.667-674
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• 2008

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of germinated and fermented unmarketable soybean (GFS) on laying performance and egg quality in laying hens. A total of two hundred laying hens were divided into 5 groups (5 treatment $\times$ 4 replication $\times$ 10 birds each) and fed with the experimental diets for 8 wk as follows: control, GFS free; T1, GFS 0.15%; T2, GFS 0.3%; T3, GFS 1%; T4, GFS 2%. The laying performance, egg quality, blood profiles, cecal microbial population, isoflavone content in egg yolk were investigated. There were no significant differences laying performance, relative liver and spleen weights, egg yolk color, eggshell color among groups. Eggshell strength in groups fed with diets containing GFS increased, but not significantly. Eggshell thickness significantly increased in the GFS-supplemented group. No significant differences were observed in the blood profiles and intestinal microflora after supplementation. The decrease of Haugh unit during storage was alleviated by feeding of GFS (p<0.05). The concentrations of malondialdehyde in groups fed with GFS were decreased as compared with control (p<0.05). Isoflavones in the egg yolk were detected in group fed with diet containing 2% GFS. These results showed that unmarketable GFS could be used as a favorable feed additive and feedstuff for production of quality enhanced and isoflavone fortified eggs.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.67-72
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• 2005

Forty-wk-old 480 ISA Brown layers were used in a 10-wk feeding trial to investigate the effects of additional various levels of limestone to a low calcium diet without any calcium additives on the performance of laying hens. There were significant differences in average egg weight (P<0.05) without any specific trend among treatments and hen-day egg production was not influenced by the dietary treatments. Daily intake and conversion per kg egg of feed excluded the calcium supplement were significantly reduced (p<0.05) as the level of additional calcium supplement increased in both types of layer diet, while those of feed included the calcium source were significantly increased (P<0.05) as the level of additional calcium supplement increased. Egg specific gravity, eggshell breaking strength and thickness were increased as the level of additional calcium supplement increased, however the significant differences were found only in egg specific gravity It would be possible to reduce the daily feed intake and feed conversion and to improve the eggshell quality by feed the low calcium diet devoid of calcium supplement from the conventional laying hen diet and by supply the additional calcium source at 3 to 4 p.m. instead of the continuous feeding of conventional high calcium diet.