GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND EGG QUALITY OF LAYING HENS FED WITH DIET SUPPLEMENTED WITH DATE PALM SEED POWDER
Keywords:
Date palm, Seed, Phytochemicals, Hens, Food safetyAbstract
An experiment lasting 12 weeks was conducted to assess the growth performance and egg quality of laying hens fed a diet supplemented with date palm seed powder. 250-30 week old Lohman brown layers weighing 1550.2 ± 0.62 grammes were acquired from a Gujarat breeding farm and randomly assigned to five treatments with five replicates (10 birds per replicate). The investigation lasted 84 days and used a completely randomised design. The diet was a basal diet (corn-soya meal based), which is compatible with the Nutritional Research Council's advice from 1994. Hens in treatment 1 were fed a basal diet without date palm seed powder, whereas those in treatments 2, 3, 4, and 5 were administered a basal diet with date palm seed powder at 20 g, 40 g, 60 g, and 80 g per kg, respectively. Birds have limitless access to fresh, clean water and food. The phyto-constituents discovered in date palm seed powder were phenols (891.44 mg/g), flavonoids (572.09 mg/g), tannins (65.56 mg/g), alkaloids (165.2 mg/g), terpenoids (332.8 mg/g), saponins (90.51 mg/g), and steroids (78.66 mg/g). Date palm powder treatment resulted in increased average daily weight gain, feed intake, hen day house production, and hen housed egg production (p < 0.05) compared to the control group. Supplementing with date palm seed powder decreased the feed conversion ratio from 4.69 to 5.05 (p < 0.05). The treatment had a substantial impact on egg weight (47.12 to 57.03 g), breadth and length (35.04 - 43.87 mm; 38.81 - 47.23 mm), shell thickness (0.19 - 0.35 mm), yolk colour (3.13 - 11.23), and haugh unit. It was determined that date seed powder can be supplemented at a rate of up to 80 g/kg diet to increase performance and yolk quality metrics when compared to hens fed a control diet, with no adverse impacts on their health state.References
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