Effect of Different Additives on Laying Hens Performance and Egg Quality Parameters

At the 2018 PSA in San Antonio, (TX), Norel presented a trial of different additives on performance and egg quality parameters in laying hens. 600 laying hens with 56 weeks of age were distributed in 5 treatments: T1-Control, T2-QUALITEGG (1.5Kg/tn); T3-EGG’XEL (1Kg/tn); T4-GUSTOR N’RGY (0.5Kg/tn); T5-GUSTOR BCP5 (0.5Kg/tn). The study lasted 9 weeks. T4 and T5 had statistically higher eggs production than T2 and T3 and those higher than T1 (87.2c, 90.7b, 90.9b, 91.7a, 92.3a, for T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5, P<0.001). For egg mass, T1 was significantly lower than T2, T3, T4 and T5 (P<0.001). In feed conversion ratio (FCR) and FCR/dz, T1 was the highest and T5 the lowest (1.46d, 1.40c, 1.40bc, 1.39ab, 1.38a, for T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5, P<0.001). The percentage of broken eggs was significantly higher for T1 (4.4a, 3.7ab, 3.5b, 2.9b, 3.3b, for T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5, P=0.05). The eggshell thickness, specific weight, eggshell percentage were significantly lower for T1 (P<0.001). The Haugh Units were significantly lower for T1 and higher for T5 (84.5c, 87.2b, 87.3b, 88.0ab, 88.5a, for T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5, P<0.001). Those results indicated the there were significant effects of the additives on the performance and egg quality. It can be concluded that the better results were achieved with GUSTOR N’RGY and GUSTOR BCP5, due to both additives had high percentages of butyric acid in their formulation, equal or higher than 56%.