| Summary: | Abstract Background The World Health Organization (WHO) encourages using medicinal herbs and plants to substitute or minimize the use of chemicals through the global trend to go back to nature. Many studies mentioned that using medicinal herbs and plants as feed additives seems to be a recent trend depending on availability and their cost but using them with monogastric animals and birds, as pharmaceutical tool, is available. Their action was manifested in a reduced expanding range of pathogenic microorganisms in the digestive tract, which resulted in the improvement of growth performance, efficient digestion, immunity, and health of poultry. Methods The present work aimed to establish the influence of adding natural bioactive mixture composed of the juice of lemon, onion, and garlic (LOG) at portions 1.00, 1.00, and 0.125/l clean water, respectively, to laying hens’ diets on their performance, egg quality, and some blood constituents. Seventy-two 30-week-old commercial Bovan Brown layers were randomly divided into four dietary treatment groups. Each treatment included eighteen hens in 6 replicates (3 birds each). All tested diets were almost isocaloric and isonitrogenous. Results Adding LOG in laying hens’ diets significantly (P < 0.05) improved feed conversion throughout the second stage of egg collection in comparison with the control group. Inclusion of LOG in laying hen diets significantly (P < 0.05) improved the number of eggs/hen, percentage of egg production, and egg mass/hen throughout the second stage of egg collection comparing with the control (G1). Diet supplied by 1% LOG recorded the best value of yolk color (5.40) and yolk percentage (28.42%) compared with the other groups. Adding 2% or 3% LOG significantly (P < 0.05) decreased the total plasma cholesterol content compared to the control group. Inclusion of LOG at different levels significantly (P < 0.05) decreased blood plasma contents of GPT and GOT. However, insignificant decreases in blood plasma creatinine occurred comparing to control. Conclusion Adding the natural bioactive mixture composed of the juice of lemon, onion, and garlic can be safely used in improving the general health, egg weight, and feed conversion with decreasing the blood cholesterol of laying hens. Supplementation of LOG in the ration of hens improved the feed conversion and egg production.
|
|---|
