Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) extract (RE) has multiple pharmacological and biological activities, it has been widely used in food, daily chemical and animal feed. This experiment is conducted to test the effects of dietary Rosemary Extract supplementation on the production performance and egg quality of laying hens and provide data support to Rosemary extract’s further application.
1.Materials & Methods
1.1 Animals
240heads 260 day-old Hy-line Variety Brown with stable egg production and similar weight were randomly allocated to 2 treatment
groups with 10 replicates per treatment and 12heads per experimental unit.
This experiment was divided into two phases:
1st phase: 260-270day, pre-fed with laying peak feed 324H
2nd phase: 271-306 day, formal experimental phase
1.2 Experimental design & Basal diet
1.2.1 Experimental design
Experimental group
| Group | Treatment |
| Blank control | Basal Diet |
| RE group | Basal Diet+ 700mg/kg 10% RE |
Ingredients and chemical composition of laying peak feed 324H
| Composition | Rate (%) |
| Corn( For Poultry) | 51.90% |
| Soybean meal(43%) | 17.16% |
| DDGS(27%) | 11.72% |
| Extruded soybean | 4.0% |
| Corn germ meal(High ash content) | 2.5% |
| Soybean oil | 2.43% |
| Shell powder (Crude) | 3.0% |
| Stone powder(Granular) | 6.55% |
| Calcium monophosphate | 0.72% |
| Phytase | 0.02% |
1.2. 2 Animals and feeding management
The laying hens were reared in 3 layer cage and each replication were evenly distributed in the same layer of chicken house. The temperature of chicken house was set to 20-25 ℃ and relative humidity was 65% – 75%. Feed twice a day (08:00, 15:00), nipple type waterer and water freely, morning and evening supplementary lighting, lighting time is 16h / day, indoor temperature and relative humidity well controlled, and disinfected according to routine procedures.
1.2.3 Production performance
Record the feed intake and egg numbers of each group every day, and calculate laying rate and feed-gain ratio.
1.3 Statistical method
This experiment adopt the Univaviate method of General Linear Model in SPSS19.0 statistical analysis software to proceed one-way
ANOVA single factor variance analysis, the factors tested to be reached significance level were multiple-compared by LSD method. The
data were indicated as mean±standard deviation, and the significance level was set as 0.05
2. Results and analysis
2.1The laying performance as below:
|
Feed-gain ratio |
Broken-shelled egg (%) |
Laying rate (%) |
Egg weight (g) |
|
| Blank control |
1.879±0.021 |
4.30±0.02a |
81.47±2.21 |
59.86±1.28 |
| RE Group |
1.855±0.178 |
2.12±0.05* |
84.69±2.78* |
63.93±0.84* |
（P＜0.05）
It can be seen from the table that dietary Rosemary extract supplementation can significantly improve the feed-gain ratio, broken-shelled egg rate, laying rate and egg weight (P < 0.05).
2.2 The egg quality test results as below:
|
Eggshell thickness (N) |
Albumen Height(mm) |
Yolk color |
Haugh unit |
|
| Blank control |
40.54±2.17 |
5.50±0.21 |
7.98±0.21 |
77.28±2.21 |
| RE Group |
45.57±1.51* |
5.86±0.35 |
8.41±0.28 |
83.39±1.84* |
（P＜0.05）
It can be seen from the table that dietary Rosemary extract supplementation can significantly improve the eggshell thickness, Albumen Height, Yolk color and Haugh unit(P< 0.05).
Post time: Nov-24-2021