Effects of Chinese Tea (Camellia sinensis) supplementation in laying hen diets on production, quality and cholesterol content of egg

• Main Author: Panja, P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Prince of Songkla University 2007-11-01
• Series: Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology (SJST)
• Subjects: Chinese Tea; layers; cholesterol
• Online Access: http://www.sjst.psu.ac.th/journal/29-6_online/0125-3395-29-6-1511-1517.pdf

A completely randomized design was used for this experiment. Two hundred 27 week old layers were divided into 5 groups, each group with 4 replications and10 birds per replication. The protein and metabolizable energy content of experimental diets were 16% and 2,750 kcal/kg respectively. The tea leaves were supplemented at 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0% The results demonstrated that feed intake, egg production, egg weight and egg mass were significantly different at 2.0% (P<0.05) supplementation of tea leaves. Quality of egg was investigated and revealed albumen height, shell thickness, and shell weight to be significantly different (P<0.05). In contrast, haugh unit, yolk color, shell color, albumen weight, and yolk weight were not significantly different among treatments. Moreover, yolk cholesterol was significantly decreased at 1.0-2.0% of tea leaves supplementation.