Investigations into the Addition of Herbal Methionine (Phytonin) As a Substitute of Synthetic Methionine in Poultry Feeds 1-Effect of Herbal Methionine (Phytonin) Supplementation on Performance and Egg Quality of Laying Hens

Abstract

An experiment was conducted during the period from February to April, 2013 to determine, whether the eggs laying performance and egg quality characteristics could be affected by feeding HM (Phytonin) as a substitute of SM. A number of 48 sixty two weeks old Hy Line hybrid laying hens were kept on cage batteries in an open sided poultry house at the Animal Production Research Center (APRC). Hens were fed on a basal diet supplemented with 100:0, 50:50, 25:75 and 0:100% SM:HM for a period of 7 weeks. Egg production was recorded daily, while feed intake and egg quality parameters were monitored weekly. No significant difference was observed among the dietary treatments in terms of performance indices, egg production, feed intake, body weight changes and feed conversion ratio (kg feed per kg eggs). On the other hand egg quality in terms of egg weight, albumin weight and yolk weight were increased (p≤0.05) by the supplementation of HM.