Enhancing the immunity and egg production of stressed laying birds by supplementing organic chromium

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to improve the immunity and egg production of stressed laying birds by organic chromium supplementation for 6 weeks. Birds (5,000 White Leghorn chicken, BV 300 strain) were divided into 5 groups (T1 to T5) having 10 replicates in each group and each replicate having 100 birds with an initial age of 33 weeks. The experimental groups are as follows: T1 is control unaffected by Newcastle disease (ND); all other groups (T2 to T5) were affected by ND and recovering from the disease. T2 is not supplemented with chromium source. T3, T4 and T5 were supplemented with chromium chloride, chromium yeast and chromium picolinate@300 ppb, respectively. The results revealed that weekly average egg production was significantly high in T1 followed by T4 during first week of supplementation and increased further. The feed intake was similar in all groups except control group. The mean HI titre for NDV was significantly higher in T4 followed by T5 and least in T2 and T3 during first week of vaccination. The titre was reached at the level of unaffected highly immune bird by second week in T4. Organic chromium supplementation (T4 and T5) reduced the mortality significantly in laying birds. The return on investment was high in chromium yeast (8.28) than the chromium picolinate (5.43). Supplementation of organic chromium to disease stressed laying birds increases egg production and HI titre and it could be useful feeding strategies during biotic stress condition.