Vol. 10, Special Issue 9 (2021)

Author(s):
B Ashok Reddy, D Ram Babu, V Chinni Preetam, M Venkateswarlu, Daida Krishna and Srinivas Gurram

Abstract:
To evaluate the effect of microencapsulated essential oil supplementation on percent hen day egg production, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg weight, egg mass, egg quality and serum parameters of laying hens. For this purpose, a total of 240 Bovans White laying hens at 22 weeks old were randomly assigned to 3 treatments with 20 replicates of 4 birds each. The birds were fed with Control diet (CD), CD + micro-encapsulated essential oil (MEEO-I: thymol, carvacrol and menthol) and CD + micro-encapsulated essential oil (MEEO-II: cinnamaldehyde, eugenol and piperine) respectively. The results revealed that percent hen day egg production was significantly (P<0.05) improved, whereas feed intake was reduced (P<0.05) in birds fed with MEEO-I and MEEO-II diets. Significantly better feed conversion ratio was observed in microencapsulated essential oil supplemented groups when compared to control group. Among egg quality parameters Haugh unit, albumen index, eggshell thickness were significantly (P<0.05) influenced in MEEO-I and MEEO-II supplemented groups. Supplementation of essential oil groups significantly reduced the serum cholesterol (P<0.05) concentration compared to control at 37th week of age. Finally, it can be concluded that supplementation of microencapsulated essential oils in the layer diet has beneficial for improving overall performance of layers.