Effect of Dietary Folic Acid Supplementation on Production and Hatching Performance in Baheij Chicken Strain

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of dietary folic acid levels on productive performance of Baheij as a local Egyptian chicken strain and the transfer of folic acid in the eggs as related to hatchability and egg weight loss during incubation and hatched chick weight. One hundred and five laying hens and 21 cocks aged 32 weeks of age from Baheij chicken strain were randomly divided into 7 treatment groups with 3 replicates each. First treatment was considered as a negative control diet and fed a diet containing 0 folic acid (premix free from folic acid). The second one was considered as positive control containing 1 mg folic acid/kg diet. The other experimented diet groups contained 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 mg folic acid/kg diet, respectively. Feeding the treatment diets began 14 days before th e start of egg collection and last for 8 weeks. Results revealed that dietary folic acid supplementation levels had no significant effect on egg production, feed consumption and feed conversion. Besides folic acid levels had no significant effect on most of the egg quality traits except for eggshell thickness, egg shape index and yolk percentage. The increase of folic acid levels in the diet from 0 to 2 mg/kg diet had increased the total egg folate concentration from 12.26 to 34.64 μg/egg. This study provides strong evidence of sensitivity of egg folate concentration to dietary folic acid levels. Also, dietary folic acid levels had no significant effect on fertility, hatchability and egg weight loss during incubation. Best significant weight of baby hatched chicks had been produced with the dose of 32 mg folic/kg diet while the other used levels had numerical increase of chick body weight. Egypt Poult. Sci. Vol (26) (III): (857-872) PERFORMANCE OF LAYING JAPANESE QUAIL FED LOW PROTEIN DIETS SUPPLEMENTED WITH MENTIONING AND LYSINE. By A. M. Ali Anim. Prod. Dept. Fac. Of Environmental Agric., Sci., Suez Canal Univ., El-Arish, Egypt. Received: 17/4/2006 Accepted: 29/5/2006 Abstract: A total number of 420 female Japanese quail 8 weeks of age were randomly distributed into 7 treatments, each containing 60 laying quail hens in three equal replicates. Four dietary crude protein levels were used in this work to study the effect of different levels of crude protein on the performance of laying quail hens. Crude protein levels were optimum level (22 %, T1), medium level (20 %, T2) and low levels (18 %, T3 and 16 %, T4). The diet contained 22 % CP and optimal levels of amino acids (T1) represents the control group . While, the other three diets were deficient in essential amino acids. Therefore, synthetic methionine and lysine were supplemented to these diets in order to maintain constant recommended levels of both methionine and lysine and considered as T5, T6 and T7, respectively. Laying quail hens were kept in cleaned and fumigated cages of wire floored batteries under similar conditions of management. Water and feed were offered ad – libitum under total of 16 hours light / day regimen up to 25 weeks of age. A total number of 420 female Japanese quail 8 weeks of age were randomly distributed into 7 treatments, each containing 60 laying quail hens in three equal replicates. Four dietary crude protein levels were used in this work to study the effect of different levels of crude protein on the performance of laying quail hens. Crude protein levels were optimum level (22 %, T1), medium level (20 %, T2) and low levels (18 %, T3 and 16 %, T4). The diet contained 22 % CP and optimal levels of amino acids (T1) represents the control group . While, the other three diets were deficient in essential amino acids. Therefore, synthetic methionine and lysine were supplemented to these diets in order to maintain constant recommended levels of both methionine and lysine and considered as T5, T6 and T7, respectively. Laying quail hens were kept in cleaned and fumigated cages of wire floored batteries under similar conditions of management. Water and feed were offered ad – libitum under total of 16 hours light / day regimen up to 25 weeks of age. The overall results showed that feeding laying quail hens on diets containing medium or low levels of crude protein recorded significant decrease in egg production, egg weight and egg mass and increase in feed conversion values compared to the control group. Howevre , feed intake values significantly increased gradually with decreasing dietary crude protein levels . Supplementing both methionine and lysine to laying quail hen diets which containing medium or low levels of crude protein improved their performance of laying quail hens especially with medium protein diet . There was no improvement in economic efficiency values due to feeding laying quail hens on medium or low protein diets either with or without supplemental methionine and lysine. Egypt Poult. Sci. Vol (26) (III): (873-889) EFFECT OF VITAMIN E SUPPLEMENTATION ON PERFORMANCE OF LAYING HENS DURING SUMMER MONTHS UNDER THE DESERT CONDITIONS by a.a.a. abd el-maksoud dept of ani. and poult. nutr., desert research center, el-matarey cairo, egypt received: 15/5/2006 accepted: 16/8/2006 abstract: this experiment was carried out to study the effect of different levels of vitamin e supplementation on performance and some blood constituents of laying hens during the summer months. a total number of 75 hens (hy-line brown -egg type) of 24 weeks of age were randomly assigned into five experimental treatment groups, 15 hens each treatment group. treatment groups were fed a basal diet (control diet) containing 24.52 mg/kg vit. e or basal diet supplementation with vit e (125, 250, 375 and 500 mg/kg diet). each treatment was divided into five replicates, three hens in five cages per treatment up to 36 weeks of age. this experiment was carried out to study the effect of different levels of vitamin e supplementation on performance and some blood constituents of laying hens during the summer months. a total number of 75 hens (hy-line brown -egg type) of 24 weeks of age were randomly assigned into five experimental treatment groups, 15 hens each treatment group. treatment groups were fed a basal diet (control diet) containing 24.52 mg/kg vit. e or basal diet supplementation with vit e (125, 250, 375 and 500 mg/kg diet). each treatment was divided into five replicates, three hens in five cages per treatment up to 36 weeks of age. the level of vit. e supplementation up to 250 mg/kg diet showed the heaviest insignificant values in final body weight (1931g) and body weight changes (329.33g) in contrast to the control group (1817g and 223.33g, respectively). the inclusion of vit e 375mg/kg diets showed the highest insignificant values of egg number, egg production, egg weight and egg mass as compared to the other experimental groups during the interval and the whole experimental periods. vit e supplementation up to 375 mg/kg in laying diets resulted in higher significant ((p<0.01) values of feed consumption, during the months (june and august) and overall mean than the control group. in addition, vit. e375mg/kg diet showed the best insignificant values of feed conversion throughout the interval and the whole experimental period. the inclusion of vit. e at levels (375 –500 mg/kg diet) showed insignificant improvement of yolk weight (%), yolk index (%), shell weight (%), and shell parameters (shell weight, shell thickness, shell weight per unit surface area and egg shell volume) when compared with the other levels. hens fed a diet containing vt.i e (375-500 mg/kg diet) had significant ((p<0.01) an increase in plasma activities of got, gpt, triglyceride and both ca and p concentration as compared with the other experimental groups. however, plasma albumin, total protein and globulin were not significantly influenced by vit.e supplementation. it could be concluded that the use of vitamin e at level of (375 mg/kg diet) in laying hen diets during summer months, under the desert condition in egypt. this level would alleviate adverse effects of high ambient temperature on egg performance, egg shell quality and some blood constituents. Egypt Poult. Sci. Vol (26) (III): (891-909) EVALUATION OF SOME NATURAL FEED ADDITIVE IN LAYER DIETS