Using guar meal or saponin extracted from guar as safe alternatives to antibiotics in feeding laying hens [electronic resource]

Includes bibliographic reference

The current experiment was carried out to evaluate the ability of guar meal or saponin extracted from it as a safe alternative to antibiotics in laying hens. At 22 weeks old, 168 healthy hens were divided into 7 groups where each group consists of 3 replicates and each replicate held 8 hens. The first group was a control treatment and fed acorn-soya meal diet and the treatments from 2 to 7 fed control diets supplemented with 0.3% guar meal, 0.6% guar meal, 60 ppm saponin, 120 ppm saponin, 60 ppm salinomycin and 120 ppm salinomycin respectively. The parameters of egg production performance, egg quality, each giblets organs and immune organs moreover lipid, protein profile and liver enzymes were measured to determine the experimental aims. The results showed an improvement in most egg production parameters was achieved when saponin extracted from guar or an equivalent amount from guar meal was supplemented to control the diet. Increasing levels of saponin or guar meal had ability to achieve a clear improvement in egg production performance compared with increasing salinomycin levels. The results of egg quality and slaughter parameters did not show a critical difference between levels of saponin or guar meal from one side and levels of salinomycin from the other side. Liver function showed a harmful effect when salinomycin was supplemented with a control diet whereas AST and ALT increased significantly when salinomycin was supplemented to control diets compared with natural ingredients. Responses of production performance and liver enzymes for experimental treatments enhance the idea of using natural components as a safe alternative to antibiotics.
Keywords: Guar, saponin, salinomycin, layers performance.

Summary in Arabic