Comparative evaluation of dietary supplementation with mannan oligosaccharide and oregano essential oil in forced molted and fully fed laying hens between 82 and 106 weeks of age

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of feed-grade preparations of mannan oligosaccharides ( MOS: ) and oregano essential oil ( OEO: ) in forced molted or fully fed 82-week-old, laying hens. A 2 × 3 factorial experiment investigated the influence of molting vs. full feeding and dietary supplements [i.e., unsupplemented control, MOS (1 g/kg) diet, and OEO (24 mg/kg) diet] on production parameters, egg quality, serum stress indicators, blood constituents, tibial characteristics, liver antioxidant status, and cecal microflora composition. A total of 864 Single Comb White Leghorn hens were randomly assigned to 6 treatments, each with 6 replicates of 24 hens each, and studied for 25 wk. Hens were fed a molt diet containing of 50% alfalfa and 50% wheat bran ( AA+WB: ) for 12 d, then returned to the laying ration. Results indicate that molt vs. full feed impacted more on most variables measured than supplementation or supplement type. Significant (P < 0.01) interactions between molting and diet were observed for the egg production, egg weight, egg mass, and feed conversion ratio ( FCR: ). In fully fed hens, MOS supplementation improved (P < 0.01) the egg production, egg weight, and FCR, and an OEO addition significantly improved the egg production and FCR in forced molted hens. Molting improved egg quality despite the significant regression in ovary and oviduct weight (P < 0.01), though supplements showed no influence. The bone ash (P < 0.01) and mineral content (P < 0.05) of molted hens were significantly lower than those of fully fed counterparts; however, poor mineralization was not reflected in the bones' mechanical properties. No significant differences were observed among treatments for hematological characteristics. Both the MOS and particularly the OEO supplementation improved (P < 0.01) liver antioxidant status and mitigated the significant increase in cecal pathogenic bacteria after molt. Our results indicate that full feeding with an aa+wb diet is an effective non-feed-removal method for molted hens, the benefit of which can be improved with MOS and OEO supplementation.

Dietary encapsulated essential oil mixture influence on apparent nutrient digestibility, serum metabolic profile, lymphocyte histochemistry and intestinal morphology of laying hens

“…The result reflected that mg/kg EOs improved the bio-availability of Ca in laying hens. Similarly, it was determined that 400 and mg/kg oregano EOs [17] and mg/kg rosemary or cinnamon [34] increased serum Ca concentration, whereas 0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg bergamot oil decreased it [35], but 250 mg/kg thymol [11] and 24 mg/kg oregano EOs [12] did not change serum Ca concentration in laying hens. It was reported that EOs could positively affect serum Ca and P concentration probably by improving intestinal morphology and oxidative stress or by increasing intestinal pH [40].…”

Effects of adding mannan oligosaccharides on digestibility and metabolism of nutrients, ruminal fermentation parameters, immunity, and antioxidant capacity of sheep1

“…Functional oligosaccharides are widely used in animal feed because of the benefits to animal growth and immunity (Duan et al, 2016). Mannanoligosaccharide (MOS) has been identified as a typical functional oligosaccharide (Patel and Goyal, 2011) and has been the subject of several studies on animals including pigs (Giannenas et al, 2016;Valpotic et al, 2016), laying hens (Bozkurt et al, 2016;Ghasemian and Jahanian, 2016), broiler chickens (Attia et al, 2014), rabbits (Abdel-Hamid and Farahat, 2016), and aquaculture (Akter et al, 2016;Torrecillas et al, 2016). Most previous studies concentrated on monogastric animals, because it is believed that oligosaccharides are degraded by ruminal microbes and therefore bring no additional benefit to ruminant diets.…”

Improving effects of Epimedium flavonoids on the selected reproductive features in layer hens after forced molting

“…Then, during the first 15 D of the experimental trial period, the hens in the CON group were fed ad libitum on a regular layer hen diet and not subjected to molting with normal illumination (16L: 8D). At the same time, the hens of TFE1 and TFE0 groups were fasted and light shaded by a dark nylon cover that allowed no light transfer to isolate molted hens from that of the unmolted hens ( Bozkurt et al., 2016 ). The molted period was 15 D; hens of 3 groups drank water ad libitum throughout the experiment.…”

“…The hens go into reduction states resulting in various hormone secretions, which ultimately lead to follicular and reproductive system organ atrophy ( Gongruttananun et al., 2017 , Socha et al., 2017 ). Significant regression in ovary and oviduct weights ( P < 0.01) has been observed in molting hens ( Bozkurt et al., 2016 ). It was found that the oviduct weights and lengths of the late-phase molting layer hens not fully fed with cassava meal for 3 or 4 wk were diminished in comparison with the control group ( Gongruttananun et al., 2017 ).…”