Effect of dietary supplementation of licorice extract on egg quality and performance of hens

Subject Areas : Veterinary Clinical Pathology

محمد Sedghi ¹ , ابولقاسم Golian ² , پریسا Soleymani ³

1 - Student of Poultry Nutrition, Department of Animal Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
2 - Professor of Poultry Nutrition, Department of Animal Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
3 - Student of Poultry Nutrition, Department of Animal Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

Received: 2010-07-23 Accepted : 2011-02-15 Published : 2010-11-22

Keywords: egg production, laying hen, Licorice extract,

Abstract :

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of various levels of dietary licorice extract on egg production, egg weight, specific gravity, feed conversion ratio, egg shell quality and blood parameters. One hundred and twenty eight laying hens (58 weeks old) were used in a completely randomized block design to test four diets with 4 replicates of 8 birds each. The four diets were supplemented with 0, 2, 4 or 6 g/kg of diets licorice extract. Hens fed the diet supplemented with 4 g/kg of licorice extract had greater (p<0.06) egg production than the control fed diet during the experiment. Hens fed 4 g/kg of licorice extract produced a significantly thicker shell (p<0.05) than those fed supplemented with 6 g/kg (389 vs. 374 mm). Percentage of abdominal fat pad was significantly decreased (p<0.05) in birds fed diet containing 6 g/kg of licorice extract compared to control diet (8.3 vs. 14.9 percentage of carcass weight). Feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, egg weight, dry shell weight, egg-specific gravity, percentage of wet albumen and wet yolk based on percentage of whole egg weight and organ weight were not influenced by licorice supplementation. This study showed that licorice extract at the level of 4 g/kg would positively influence egg production or shell quality and decrease the abdominal fat pad when 6 g/kg of licorice was fed to hens.

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