Response of Egg Production and Egg Shell Quality to Dietary Vegetable Oils

Abstract: The experiment was designed to evaluate the effect of some dietary vegetable oils (VO) and their mixtures on the productive performance of layers. Eight hundred and ten, 30 week old Bovans White hens were randomly divided into 15 groups of 54 layers each. The control group (Cont.) was fed diet with no added oil. Experimental groups were offered diets having 2.4 % or 4.8 % of either linseed oil (LO) or palm oil (PO) or sunflower oil (SFO). (1:1) mixture of LO+PO, LO+SFO or PO+SFO, respectively. And (1:1:1) mixture of LO+PO+SFO. Feed was given in all mash form and offered with water ad-libitum under a total 16 hours light/day regimen. Body weight, Egg production, egg weight, feed intake, egg internal and external quality characteristics were recorded. Based on obtained results of the investigation it can be conducted that the plant oil had positive effect on hen’s performance. The results indicated that feeding laying hens on PO+SFO diet at 7.5 % substitution of total energy produced the best egg production (EP). Egg weight (EW) tends to increase with oil addition to the diet. The best feed conversion ratio (FCR) when diets containing PO at 15% or PO+SFO at 7.5 or 15 % substitution of total energy, respectively. No significant differences between dietary oil sources or levels on egg shell thickness (ST) and percentage (ESP), total lipid or total cholesterol contents in the yolk and albumen mixture compared to the control diet. Significant differences between dietary treatments on serum total immunoglobulin titres (STIT) were observed. The diet containing PO+SFO at 7.5