Effects of Dietary Organic and Inorganic Sulfur on Laying Performance, Egg Quality, Ileal Morphology, and Antioxidant Capacity in Laying Hens

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the comparative effects of organic and inorganic forms of sulfur, methyl sulfonyl methane (MSM) and sodium sulfate (SS), on laying performance, egg quality, ileal morphology, ileal volatile fatty acids, and antioxidant and stress markers in various biological samples in aged laying hens. A total of 144, 73-week-old Lohman Brown-Lite laying hens were randomly assigned to one of three experimental diets: basal diet (CONT), CONT + 0.2% MSM (MSM), and CONT + 0.3% SS (SS). The trial lasted for 12 weeks. MSM and SS diets contained 0.07% of sulfur, either organic or inorganic. Dietary MSM did not affect egg production or feed conversion ratio at 12 weeks compared with the CONT group. Dietary sulfur did not affect egg quality except for the Haugh unit at 4 weeks, which was lowered (p < 0.05) in the SS group. Compared with the CONT group, a higher (p < 0.05) villus height to crypt depth ratio was observed in the SS group. Dietary sulfur did not affect the percentages of short-chain fatty acids in the ileum. Total antioxidant capacity of the liver increased (p < 0.05) in laying hens fed MSM- and SS-added diets compared with the CONT group. The MSM and SS groups were found to have lowered (p < 0.05) malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration in serum samples compared with CONT. Finally, dietary MSM had the lowest (p < 0.05) MDA concentrations in yolk samples. Taken together, our study showed that dietary organic and inorganic sulfur have positive effects on ileal morphology and antioxidant capacity in laying hens. However, SS-mediated inhibition in laying performance needs to be clarified.

Effects of Dietary Calcium Lactate Supplementation on Laying Performance, Blood Index, Shinbone Quality, Jejunal Immunity, and Egg Quality of Aged Laying Hens

“…Compared with sodium selenite, organic selenium integrated with bacteria or yeast improved the performance, egg quality, and selenium contents of tissues and eggs and increased beneficial caecal bacterial proliferation and butyric acid content in laying hens [26,27]. The addition of organic sulfur and inorganic sulfur to the diet was beneficial to the ileal morphology and antioxidant capacity of laying hens [28]. It can be seen from the above that the addition of organic acids and organic elements to feed can effectively improve the production of laying hens, which was confirmed again in this study, which showed that the addition of calcium lactate to feed improved the egg-production performance of laying hens.…”

Incorporation of Dietary Methyl Sulfonyl Methane into the Egg Albumens of Laying Hens

“…Albumen weight was then calculated by subtracting yolk and dry eggshell weights from the initial whole egg weight. The separated yolks were pooled (3 yolks/replicate) and processed to determine the concentrations of corticosterone and malondialdhyde (MDA), as described elsewhere [23][24][25]. 4 14.49 Crude fat 4 4.01 Crude ash 4 14.84 Calcium 3 4.10 Sulfur 4 0.15 Available phosphorus 3 0.28 Total lysine 3 0.65 Total methionine 3 0.32 Total methionine + cysteine 3 0.60 Methyl sulfonyl methane 4 0.03…”

Effects of dietary methyl sulfonyl methane and selenium on laying performance, egg quality, gut health indicators, and antioxidant capacity of laying hens

“…Histological sections (5 μm thick) were prepared using standard hematoxylin-eosin staining [24]. The mucosa was examined under a light microscope (Olympus BX43, Tokyo, Japan) and photographed using a digital camera (eXcope T500; DIXI Science, Daejeon, Korea).…”