Effects of dietary supplementation rice bran extracton production performance, feed intake, egg quality and excreta microbiota in laying hens

Abstract Text:

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation of rice bran extract on production performance, feed intake, egg quality and excreta microbiota in laying hens. A total of 288 Hy-line Brown (46-week old) laying hens were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatments. The trial lasted for 20 weeks. The dietary treatments were as follows: 1) CON, free antibiotics diet; 2) RB01, CON +0.01% rice bran extract; 3) RB02, CON + 0.02% rice bran extract. There were 8 replicates per treatment with 12 birds per replicate. Daily records of egg production and feed consumption were kept throughout the experimental period. Egg production was expressed as an average production of hen per day, which was calculated from the total number of eggs divided by the number of experimental time (week as a unit) and summarized on an average basis.A total of 42 salable eggs (no shell defects or cracks) were randomly collected biweekly from each treatment at 17:00h (3 eggs per replication). The egg quality of the collected eggs was then determined at 20:00h on the day of collection.All data were arranged to evaluate by analysis of variance following the GLM procedure in a completely randomized design using the SAS software program (SAS Institute, 1996). Laying hens were blocked with identical age.The difference among treatment was compared using the Duncan’s multiple range test. The treatment effect was observed significant with the probability value below 0.05. The egg production of RB02 was higher (92.3 vs. 88.1 %; 93.3 vs. 90.3 %; P<0.05) than CON at 5th and 6th week. Moreover, the E. coli content of excreta microflora of CON was higher (6.62 vs. 6.37 log₁₀cfu/g; P<0.05) than RB02. The Lactobacillus content of CON was lower (7.44 vs. 7.72 log₁₀cfu/g; P<0.05) compared with RB02. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of 0.02 % rice bran extract can increase egg production performance and Lactobacillus content, and decrease E. coli content in laying hens.

Keywords:  egg quality, excreta microbiata, feed intake, laying hens, production performance, rice bran extract.