Efficacy of four dietary medicinal herbs (nettle, fenugreek, salvia and isatis) on the production performance of laying hens
2009
Beiki Bandarabadi , Morteza
In order to investigate the effects of four herbal additives on the performance of laying hens, dried whole plant materials of nettle (Urtica dioica), sage (Salvia officinalis) and woad (Isatis tinctoria) and ground seeds of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) were added lonely or their 2- and 4- component mixtures to layer basal diets, at a 0.5 % level. Twelve dietary treatments were assigned to 36 pens and analyzed in a completely randomized design, with treatments as split plots and their hen day egg production (EP), egg mass (EM), egg weight (EW), feed intake and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were compared in four consecutive 21-days intervals. Yolk color, internal and egg shell quality were com;ared m.J11thly. The use of medicinal herbs had no effect on production performance, in comparison with control diet. Nettle-fenugreek reduced EP and EM (P0.05) and nettle-salvia reduced EM significantly (P0.05). Salvia and 4-component mixture increased them numerically. Herbals and their 2-component mixtures decreased EW (P0.05). Herb included diets especially those with nettle and fenugreek- isatis had greater feed intakes (P0.05). Some additives reduced FCR (P0.05) but those of salvia and 4-component mixture were equal to control. Haugh unit of the eggs resulted from diets containing salvia were lesser than control in all periods (P0.05). Fenugreek- salvia mixture and isatis had the greatest yolk color (P0.05). Nettlesalvia had the best shell strength and thickness (P0.05).The results of this experiment had shown that adding 0.5 percent of salvia or 4-component herbal mixture to layer diets have a suitable effects on production traits but decreasing effects on egg shell quality. Fenugreek, nettle-salvia and fenugreek-salvia can be used for increasing haugh unit, shell strength and egg yolk, respectively.
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