Published in Scientific Papers. Series D. Animal Science, Vol. LXII, Issue 1
Written by Muzaffer DENLI, Simten YESILMEN ALP, Aydin VURAL
This study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary oregano essential oils (OEO) on performance, egg quality and eggshell bacterial contamination in laying hens housed in free-range system. A totally of 300, 31 weeks of age laying hens (Atak-S) were allocated into two groups: negative control (NC; basal diet) and oregano essential oils (basal diets plus 150 mg/kg oregano essential oils) for 6 months. Totally 30 eggs were collected from each trial group on the last day of each week to determine the egg quality characteristics during the experiment. The highest egg weight and lowest feed conversion ratio were measured in OEO group compared to control (P<0.05). OEO significantly (P<0.05) reduced the number of eggshell contaminated with the contamination of Enterobacteria, Coliform and Escherichia coli. However, no significant differences on egg quality parameters were noticed between OEO and control groups throughout the experiment (P>0.05). In conclusion, the supplementation of OEO to diet may reduce the total bacteria contamination on the egg shell surface obtained laying hens housed in free range systems.
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