Performance and egg value enhancing abilities of herbal feed supplements in layer diets

To study the dual role of herbal feed supplements as performance enhancers and for value added egg production, an experiment was conducted with 4500 hens in cages from 30–42 weeks of age. They were allotted to nine treatments x five replicates x 100 hens/replicate. The treatments were: Layer mash with no added performance enhancer (Control); feed supplemented with antibiotic Zinc Bacitracin @ 20 mg/kg (ZB); herb Eclypta alba (Bhringaraj) @ 1g/kg (EA); Phyllanthus neruri (Bhuiamla) @ 1g/kg (PN); Ocimum sanctum (Holy basil/Tulasi) @3g/kg (OS); Ocimum album(White Basil) @ 3g/kg (OA); commercial herbal feed supplements -Herbiotic @ 0.5g/kg (HB); Liv-52 @ 0.5g/kg (L-52) and Superliv @ 0.5g/kg (SL). The data on egg production, egg size, internal egg qualities, livability, feed consumption and feed efficiency were collected. Six eggs from each replicate were collected at 36 weeks of age for estimation of yolk cholesterol, carotinoid pigments, antioxidant properties and immunoglobulin-IgY levels. The blood samples were collected from two hens from each replicate at the end of third week, the serum was separated for estimation of Haemagglutination Inhibition (HI) and ELISA titre levels for ND. Boiled eggs were also subjected to taste panel studies. The egg size, shell thickness, albumen index, yolk index, Haugh units and organoleptic acceptability of the eggs did not vary between treatments. The egg production and feed efficiency were significantly (P ≤ 0.05), improved by Ab, EA, PN, HB, L-52 and SL treatments. Livability was better than the control in all treatments. Yolk colour was Significantly (P ≤ 0.05) improved in OS and OA. The yolk cholesterol was significantly (P ≤ 0.01) reduced and the immunoglobulin-IgY was significantly (P ≤ 0.01) increased in OS and OA, followed by EA and PN. Anti-oxidant property of the egg, expressed as FRAP (Ferric Reduction Anti-oxidant Potential) was significantly (P ≤ 0.01) improved by OS and OA. The 3 commercial herbal preparations (HB, L-52 and SL) gave performance comparable to ZB, suggesting that these herbal preparations are safe alternatives to antibiotic feed supplements in layer feeds. The results revealed that the 3 commercial herbal preparations (HB-Herbiotic, L-52 –Liv-52 and SL-Superliv) gave performance comparable to ZB, suggesting that these herbal preparations are safe alternatives to antibiotic feed supplements in layer feeds.