Effects of dietary probiotic (Pediococcus acidilactici) supplementation on performance, nutrient digestibility, egg traits, egg yolk cholesterol, and fatty acid profile in laying hens

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of dietary probiotic Pediococcus acidilactici (PA) strain MA18/5M on performance, egg traits, egg cholesterol content, and fatty acid composition in laying hens during a 24-wk period. A total of 222 Hy-Line Brown laying hens, 22 wk of age, were divided into 3 treatment groups. Control group (C) hens were fed a basal diet with no probiotic added. In group PA1, the basal diet was supplemented with PA at 100 mg.kg(-1) of feed for the first 12 wk and 50 mg.kg(-1) feed for the next 12 wk, whereas treatment PA2 was supplemented with 100 mg.kg(-1) feed for the whole trial period. Dietary treatments did not significantly affect the BW, feed intake, and egg production of hens. Pediococcus acidilactici supplementation increased egg weight (P < 0.05), eggshell thickness, eggshell relative weight, and egg specific gravity, and it improved feed efficiency ratio per kilogram of eggs (P < 0.01). Moreover, PA dietary supplementation resulted in a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in the number of broken eggs and eggs without the shell, leading to a significant (P < 0.01) reduction in the number of downgraded eggs (39% for PA1 and 52% for PA2). After 6 mo of probiotic supplementation, significant differences were also found in the fatty acid composition and cholesterol content of egg yolk. The yolk cholesterol content, regardless of PA dose, decreased by more than 10%. The concentrations of total polyunsaturated fatty acids, including linoleic acid and linolenic acid, were significantly higher in treatment PA2 (6.5% increase) than in C and PA1. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of Pediococcus acidilactici MA 18/5M at 100 mg.kg(-1) has potential commercial applications for improvements in hen performance and eggshell quality during the early laying period.

Effects of Kluyveromyces marxianus Isolated from Tibetan Mushrooms on the Plasma Lipids, Egg Cholesterol Level, Egg Quality and Intestinal Health of Laying Hens

“…Moreover, the egg concentrations of vitamin A, crude fat, vitamin E, calcium, zinc, selenium, and dry matter also dramatically improved in the eggs of yeastfed hens (Table 5). Similar studies reported a significant improvement of egg production in hens fed a mixed culture of probiotics, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus casei (Tortuero & Fernandez, 1995), L. acidophilus alone , Pediococcus acidilactici (Mikulski et al, 2012), Bacillus subtilis (Xu et al 2006;Abdelqader et al 2013), Propionibacterium jensenii (Luo et al, 2010), and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Yalçin et al, 2010). Significant improvements in egg weight and eggshell quality were also obtained in hens fed diets supplemented with a mixture of Lactobacillus cultures (Davis & Anderson, 2002;Kalavathy et al, 2009).…”

Chemical Compositions of Egg Yolks and Egg Quality of Laying Hens Fed Prebiotic, Probiotic, and Synbiotic Diets

“…However, there were no significant differences in yolk cholesterol observed among all dietary treatment groups during the later laying period at 32 and 36 wk of age (Table ). The egg yolk cholesterol content was also found to be lowered by 13.68% in hens fed inulin (Shang and others ), 11.97% in hens fed fructooligosaccharide (Li and others ), 11.47% in hens fed probiotic Pediococcus acidilactici (Mikulski and others ), and 9.9% in hens fed a multi‐strain probiotic (Aghaii and others ). The discrepancies in results could be due to differences in prebiotics, probiotic strains, administration doses, and hen ages and strains.…”

“…The addition of probiotics to the diets of laying hens has been found to improve egg quality parameters including egg shell thickness (Panda and others ; Abdelqader and others ), egg specific gravity, and albumen quality (Haugh unit) (Khan and others ). Probiotic supplementation may also alter the lipid metabolism of chickens as several studies have indicated that probiotics could reduce the cholesterol content of egg yolks (Kurtoglu and others ; Kalavathy and others ; Mikulski and others ), sera (Kurtoglu and others ), and carcasses (Kalavathy and others ) of laying hens and broiler chickens.…”

Synergistic effect of feedingAspergillus awamoriand lactic acid bacteria on performance, egg traits, egg yolk cholesterol and fatty acid profile in laying hens

“…The increase in Ca and Zn contents in yolk may be due to the hypothesis that an acidic environment created in the digestive tract by AA and LAB facilitates the ionisation of minerals and improves their absorption (Haddadin et al 1996). Mikulski et al (2012) found that increasing in Ca retention in hens fed probiotic-supplemented diets.…”