Chinese herb ultrafine powder supplementation improves egg nutritional value and quality in laying hens

Abstract

This study evaluates the effects of dietary Chinese herb ultrafine powder (CHUP) supplementation in late-phase laying hens on the quality and nutritional values of eggs. A total of 576 Xinyang black-feather laying hens (300-day-old) were randomly allocated into eight groups for a 120-day feeding trial. Each group contained eight replicates with nine hens per replicate. The experimental groups included the control (basal diet) and different levels of CHUP groups (details in ‘Materials and methods’). The results showed that the eggshell strength was increased (p < 0.05) in the L, LF, L-LF, L-T, and LF-T groups on day 60 of the trial. In addition, the plasma estradiol level in the L-LF, LF-T, and L-LF-T groups and unsaturated fatty acids concentrations in egg yolk of the CHUP groups (except LF-T group) were increased, whereas total cholesterol (T, L-LF, L-T, and L-LF-T groups) in egg yolk and the atherogenicity (T, L-T, and L-LF-T groups) and thrombogenicity (T, L-LF, L-T, and L-LF-T groups) indexes were decreased (p < 0.05) on day 60 of the trial compared with the control group. Moreover, bitter amino acids in egg albumen were decreased (p < 0.05) in the L-LF group on day 60 and the L-LF-T group on day 120 of the trial. Collectively, these findings indicate that dietary CHUP supplementation could improve eggshell quality and increase plasma reproductive hormone, fatty acid and amino acid composition, and nutritional values of eggs, especially L-LF and L-LF-T.

Keywords:

• Chinese herb
• egg quality
• nutritional values
• ultrafine powder
• Xinyang black-feather hens

Ethics statement

The animal study was reviewed and approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, Hunan, China (ISA-2018-071).

Author contributions

XK, YC, and JH designed the experiments. JG, WL, CM, XH, and WL conducted the experiments. JG, MA, and XK wrote and revised the paper. All authors contributed to the article and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors, and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Availability of data and materials

The data presented in this study are deposited in online repositories and accession number can be found at https://www.scidb.cn/en/anonymous/VlpmSUZm.

Additional information

Funding

This study was jointly supported by the City-School Cooperation Project of the Special Funds of Science and Technology in Fuyang City undertaken by Fuyang Normal University [SXHZ2020007] and the Special Funds of Construction of Innovative Provinces in Hunan Province [2019RS3022].