Egg production and quality characteristics of laying hens fed diets supplemented with dry caper (Capparis spinosa) leaf powder

Abstract

An in vivo experiment was conducted to determine the effect of dietary inclusion of dry Caper (Capparis spinosa) leaf powder (DCL) on egg production and egg quality of laying hens at the beginning of the laying period. Four groups of commercial hens (ATAK-S) were fed with diets containing 0, 5, 10 and 15 g DCL/kg. The results demonstrated that dietary DCL had no effect on feed intake, feed efficiency, egg mass (EM) and egg production parameters (P>0.05). Hen-day egg production (HDP) value of the groups was 69.52%, 64.97%, 68.02% and 71.72% respectively. Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and total phenolics amount of DCL were 51.06±2.300 mmol trolox/kg, 50.10±3.488 mmol TEAC/kg and 2.78±0.050 g gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/kg respectively. Based on the results from the current study, the dietary DCL with levels up to 15 g/kg neither reduced productivity performance traits nor improved egg quality characteristics.