Effect of folic acid supplementation to Lohmann Brown layers diet on performance, egg quality and folic acid content of eggs and serum

Abstract

Sometimes, customers added folic acid to layer diet to enhance brown egg shell color. This supplementation may lead to increase the content of folic acid in serum and eggs. The increment of folic acid in egg lead to produce folate egg that it will be beneficial to customers health especially pregnant women. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of supplementation of folic acid enriched diet on layer performance, egg quality, and folic acid content of egg and serum. Five thousand Lohmann classic brown laying hen’s type were use in this experiment. At the first period, hens were fed on basal diet according to Lohmann Classic Brown nutrition requirement guide. The Second period of the experiment, all hens were fed same basal diet enriched with folic acid with 1mg/kg of feed. Eggs were collected and blood samples were collected from the layers at the end of the first and second periods for measuring folic acid content of egg and serum by using HPLC & ELIZA respectively. Egg quality were measuring by calculating of egg weight, albumin height, albumin diameter, yolk height, yolk diameter, yolk color, shell thickness and Haugh unit.