Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Antimicrobial Peptide on Production Performance, Egg Quality and Serum Biochemical Parameters of Laying Hens

Abstract

Background: Antibiotic resistance has become more and more serious problem with worldwide human health. Intensive research has been focused on the development of alternative strategies to maintain gut health and performance in intensive poultry production systems. One such alterative to antibiotics is Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). The present study was as conducted to study the effect of dietary supplementation of Antimicrobial peptide on production performance, egg quality and serum biochemical parameters of laying hens. Methods: One hundred twenty (120), Vanaraja laying hens of 26 weeks of age were selected at random and divided into four groups of 30 each with three replicates of 10 in each group in a complete randomized design. Four experimental diets were fed to birds in which T1 (control- antibiotic powder-oxytetracycline @ 50 g/ quintal) and in rest of the 3 treatment groups T2, T3 and T4, the birds were fed with, antimicrobial peptide (AMP, cecropin II) at the concentration of 10, 15 and 20 g/quintal of feed, respectively. Result: Dietary supplementation of AMP significantly increased (P less than 0.005) the body weight of laying hens at 34 weeks of age at all the levels of supplementation (100-200 mg/kg diet). Haugh unit increased significantly due to supplementation of AMP at all the levels of supplementation. It is concluded that dietary supplementation of antimicrobial peptide (AMP), cecropin II could replace antibiotics for eliciting optimum performance in laying hens.