Effects of lysolecithins on performance, egg quality, blood profiles and liver histopathology in late-phase laying hens

ABSTRACT

1. This study investigated the effects of lysolecithins (LL) on performance, egg quality, blood profiles, relative organ weight and liver histopathology in laying hens.

2. A total of 480 healthy 65-week-old Lohmann laying hens were randomly allocated into four treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement design with two levels of energy (AMEn, 11.08 MJ/kg and 12.94 MJ/kg) and two levels of LL (0 and 0.05%).

3. Birds fed high energy diets had lower (P < 0.05) average daily intake and feed conversion rate during weeks 0–4, 5-8 and 0–8, but higher (P < 0.05) average egg weight (AEW) during trial weeks 0–4. There was an interaction in (P < 0.05) AEW during trial weeks 0–14 and 0–8 for energy and LL. The high energy diets increased yolk colour at the end of weeks 2 and 4, while addition of LL increased albumen height at the end of week 2. There was an interaction (P < 0.05) in yolk colour between energy and LL at the end of week 2. There was an interaction (P < 0.05) in serum superoxide dismutase and LDL-C throughout the experiment.

4. The high energy diets increased (P < 0.05) the relative weight of abdominal fat compared with low energy diets. The high energy diets increased (P < 0.05) liver ether extract content and liver pathological injury score compared with low energy diets at the end of week 8, while the addition of LL decreased (P < 0.05) liver pathological injury score.

5. The supplementation of LL in high energy diets could alleviate some negative effects on liver injury in late laying hens.

KEYWORDS:

• Lysolecithin
• laying hens
• liver
• performance
• egg quality

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Kemin Industries (Zhuhai) Co., Ltd. and Sundaily Village in China.