Effect of Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa Powders in diets on laying performances and hatchability of local hens in the south of Vietnam

Nguyen Thi Thuy and Nguyen Cong Ha

College of Agriculture, CanTho University, Campus II, 3/2 Street, Ninh Kieu District, CanTho City, Viet Nam
nthithuycn@ctu.edu.vn

Abstract

A study was carried out to determine the effect of Moringa oleifera (MOP) and Curcuma longa (CUP) powder supplementations in feed on egg performances, quality and hatchability of small size local hens (Ac) from 23-37 weeks age. A total of 144 Ac local hens at the 22 weeks of age were randomly distributed in a completely randomized design experiment, with 3 treatments and 4 replicates, each replicate consisted of a pen with 10-12 hens and 2 cocks/pen. The experimental data was collected in two stage of laying including 7 weeks of early stage (23-29 weeks age) and 8 weeks of middle stage of laying (30-37 weeks age). Treatments used: (1) Control (Cont): Basal diet (B) without any supplement in the feed; (2) MOP: B + 1% Moringa oleifera powder in the diet; (3) CUP: B+ 1% Curcuma longa powder in the diet.

There was no effect on daily feed intake of hens by MOP or CUP supplementation in the diets (P>0.05). But, a little improvement hen day production (P<0.05) in MOP (54.09 % and 61.6%) hens compared to CUP (53.49% and 59.7%) and control (52.32% and 58.11%) groups in early and middle laying stage, respectively. And lead to higher egg mass of supplemented groups to compare with control hens. However, there was not significant different in egg weight and feed conversion ratio of hens fed supplemented products compared with controls (P<0.05). The results also showed no significant effect of supplemented treatments on egg quality parameters, but there was a higher yellow color of egg yolk in MOP (b ^*=44.8) compared to that in CUP (b^*=43.5) and control (b^*=42.1) groups. Supplementation of MOP (89.3 % and 88.6%) and CUP (88.7 % and 87.3%) increased fertile eggs and hatchability of fertile eggs compared with control hatching eggs (87.2% and 85.3%). As a result, there was higher total chicks and economic efficiency of supplemented hens to compare with control hens. In conclusion, Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa powders supplemented in the diet at 1% tendency to improve the egg production, yellow color of egg yolk and hatchability to compare with control groups, and supplementation of MOP got highest total chicks and economic efficiency.

Keywords: Ac hen, Curcuma longa powder, hen- day production, hatchability, Moringa oleifera powder

Introduction

Local chicken breeds are developing in the south of Vietnam recently, they are not only raised in small householders but also in semi-large scale farming with commercial feed. Among these breeds, Ac chicken is a small size that originated in the Mekong Delta, the body is covered with white feathers, but the skin, meat and bones are black. They are quiet low egg production; and the early laying stage started at 15-16 weeks age, then slowly reaches the peak at 25 to 40 weeks and quickly decline in egg rate after 50 weeks of age (Van Phuoc et al 2019). Ac chickens are dual-purpose birds and kept for meat and eggs, event they have low growth and egg performances, but their meat and eggs have outstanding flavour. So, in order to improve egg performance and quality of Ac hens, they are not only supplied the requirement feeds but also supplemented of natural feed additives as egg or growth natural promoters. In which, tree leaves or herbal powders are not popularly using in chicken diets in the south of Vietnam, but there are some researchers found that herbal powders may be supplemented in the diets as antibiotic replacing.

Normally, tree leaves contain relatively high antinutritional factors, which may have effects on the growth performance of animals if it was supplemented at high levels. But according to Su and Chen (2020), Moringa oleifera powder is a tree leaves powder which is suitable for animal feed not only because of their great amounts of nutrients but also because they contain low amounts of anti-nutrients, and Moringa oleifera is rich in vitamin (Leone et al 2015). Besides, herbal powders are also feed additive that are used for replacement with antibiotic in poultry production recently, in which Curcuma longa powder (Turmeric) is a culinary spice, contains many compounds with high biological activities as anti-microbials (Kim et al 2013). So, in order to compare tree leaves or herbal powder effects to egg performance and quality, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa powders supplementation in the feed as feed additive on egg performances and hatchability of Ac laying hens in the early and middle laying stages.

Materials and methods

Animals and experimental design

The experiment was conducted in a laying farm in Can Tho city in the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam from November 2020 to March, 2021. A total of 144 Ac laying hens were housed in pens, the hens were 22 weeks age, lasted at 37 weeks age. Each treatment was randomly allotted to 4 pens with 10-12 hens per pen in an open-side house. Water was supplied ad-libitum in line drinkers. Feed was supplied twice a day, 30% was fed at 8am and another 70% was given at 2 pm. The experiment was arranged as a completely randomized design, and the trial lasted for 2 phage of laying from early stage (23-29 weeks age) and middle stage (30-37 weeks age).

Experimental treatments and feed

Feed formulation and composition of basal diet are showed in Table 1.

The basal diet was formulated following local laying hen requirement with amount of metabolizable energy (11.3 MJ/kg) and crude protein (17.6 %) content. The basal diet was supplemented with Moringa oleifera (MOP) and Curcuma longa (CUP) powders at 1% in the diet. Chemical composition of Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa powders are showed in table 2. Two supplemented powders were prepared one before starting the experiment, the origin material were bought from local farmers. These materials were cleaned and cut into smaller pieces and dried sufficiently in the sunlight to remove moisture content. After drying, required amount of Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa powders were prepared by fine grinding to make powder form. Then these were mixed into the feeds every 7 days and fed continuously for 15 weeks.

Photo 1. Moringa oleifera leaves	Photo 2. Moringa oleifera powder	Photo 3. Curcuma longa powder

Treatments were:

1/ Cont: Basal diet (B) without any supplementation in the diet

2/ MOP: B + 1% Moringa oleifera powder in the diet

3/ CUP: B + 1% Curcuma longa powder in the diet

Egg performance

During the experimental period, egg number was recorded daily to calculate egg production as a percentage of eggs produced per bird. Eggs collected daily were weighed immediately after collection. Egg weight was determined by weighing all eggs produced per experimental unit by a digital balance. The average feed intake was recorded daily, egg mass and feed conversion ratios were calculated weekly. Egg mass was determined by calculating hen day production x egg weight. Feed conversion ratio was determined by calculating feed intake/egg mass.

Egg quality

At the 25^th week age, 84 eggs (28 from each treatments) were randomly collected for egg quality analysis. Egg shape index was determined by calculating (egg width / egg length) x 100 (Sandi et al 2013). Then, eggs were broken, egg contents were poured onto a horizontal glass. Albumin, yolk and shell were separated and weighed individually (Englmaierová et al 2014). Shell thickness was determined by calculating the mean of triplicate measurement from different sides of shell (Güçlü et al 2008). Haugh Unit was measured using formula HU=100 x log (H - 1.7 W ^0.37 + 7.57) (Saleh 2013).

Fertility and hatchability percentages

From the 30^th week age, the eggs were collected for incubation during 8 weeks. The eggs were collected for seven consecutive days and stored under recommended condition at the farm. Hatching eggs must be weight over 34g, moderately thick egg shell, hard and smooth. After selection, the eggs were placed in a cold room at 20⁰C for 1 week storage and then put into the incubator every week. The incubator used in this study has a capacity of 1920 eggs.

Fertility was determined by candling the incubated eggs on the 7^th day of incubation, when eggs that were fertile having small dark spot, numerous blood vessels arising from those dark spot of york were kept further in the incubator, others were embryonic mortality. The embryonic mortality was determined by candling eggs at 7^th of incubation (early mortality) and the last 3 days of hatching (late mortality). Fertility was computed by employing the following formula given by Bonnier and Kasper (1990): Fertility (%) =(Total fertile eggs/total hatching eggs)*100.

Eggs are incubated in the machine until the 18^th day, will be screened again before transferring to the hatching machine to remove dead embryos. At the 21^st days of incubation, hatched chicks were collected and counted to determine hatchability in relate to the number of fertile eggs.

Hatchability of fertile eggs = (Number of chicks hatch/total fertile eggs)*100

Hatchability of total eggs = (Number of chicks hatch/total hatching eggs)*100 (Fayeye et al 2005)

Statistical analysis

Collected data was analyzed by ANOVA using the General Liner Model (GLM) of Minitab Statistical Software Version 16. Tukey pair-wise comparisons were used to determine differences between treatment means at P<0.05. The statistical model used is as follows: Y_ij = µ + α_i + e_ij

Where Y_ij: are egg performances, egg quality or hatchability; µ is overall mean averaged over all treatments; α_i is effect of treatment; e_ij is random error associated with treatment and replicate within treatment.

Chemical analysis

The chemical composition of basal feed was determined following Association of Official Analytical Chemists methods (AOAC 1990).York color was recorded using a colorimeter (Chromameter Minolta, CR-400 Head, DP-400/ Japan), which indicated degrees of lightness of a york sample (L), red-ness (a) and yellow-ness (b).

Results and discussion

Egg performance and feed conversion

Hen day production, egg weight and feed conversion during the period between 23 and 37 weeks of age is presented in Table 3 and shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2, respectively. Supplementation of Moringa oleifera powder at 1% in the diet trend to improve egg production and egg mass, these results are in agreement with research from Siti et al (2017) and Mohammed et al (2012). These results may be caused by the presence of phytochemical compounds on Moringa leaves, which are source of vitamin A, riboflavin, beta-carotene, calcium and α-tocopherol (Prasad and Ganguly 2012), these compounds such as beta-carotene when added to the feed, this bioactive along with phytochemicals, increase egg production and has a positive effect on chicken health. The main way of this active ingredient is the inhibition of microbial pathogens and endotoxins in the intestine and increased pancreatic activity, resulting in better metabolism and utilization of nutrients, so lead to increase feed digestibility and improve feed efficiency in chickens (Grashorn, 2010). However, Shen et al (2021) found that at the high levels of Moringa oleifera powder inclusion in the diet around 5-10% led to a reduced laying rate because the proteins in Moringa oleifera are more difficult to absorb and digest than soyabean protein replacement, whereas low levels of Moringa oleifera did not (Lu et al 2016; Chen et al 2020). Shen et al (2021) also found that, supplementation of Moringa oleifera powder at 2.5 % in the diet does not negatively affect laying rate performance and good for york color, improves antioxidant capacity and reduces feed conversion in layer chickens, but at higher level supplementation reduced feed intake and egg production.

Similarly, supplementation of Curcuma longa powder at 1% in the diets also have trend to improve egg production and feed conversion ratio than control. This is in agreement with the report of Van Phuoc et al (2019), who found that supplementation of turmeric at 0.1 to 0.5% in the diet improved egg production. Research of Moeini et al (2011) and Malekizadeh et al (2012) showed that egg production of hens increased when turmeric was supplemented at level 1-3% in the diets.This results may be because turmeric powder has a beneficial effect on the stomach due to increasing mucin secretion and might act as a gastroprotectant against irritants, and because of the anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative effects of curcumin (Chattopadhyay et al 2004).

Figure 1. Hen day production (%) of hens from 23 to 37 weeks age	Figure 2. Egg weight (g/egg) of hens from 23 to 37 weeks age

Egg quality parameters

Egg quality parameters of experimental hens are presented in Table 4. The hen feed producers often add synthetic pigments to the feed to improve egg yolk color, but this also increases cost. Therefore, in order to find natural sources of pigment for replacement is necessary, which plant leaves or herbal powders could be promising alternative materials.

In this study, the yellow color of egg york from supplemented treatments increased to compare with controls eggs, especially the highest b ^* value was in Moringa oleifera suppelemntation. This can be explained that Moringa oleifera are rich in vitamin A or carotenoid pigments which are efficiently absorbed and utilized by hens (Siti et al 2019), because carotenoids play an important role in the development of different color scores in egg York. Lu et al (2016) also found that Moringa oleifera has a marked effect on York color, which is mainly affected by lipid-soluble pigments that are synthesized from α-carotenne, beta -carotene and carotenoids. Because, in markets where eggs with high yellow york color are valued. Similarly Park et al (2012) also reported that yolk color in eggs from hens fed 0.5% Curcuma longa powder increased in comparison with the control. This present study found that turmeric supplementations influence egg yolk color that is an important feature highly preferred by consumers. This result could be a promising alternative material for improving the egg yolk color, which often be added synthetic pigments to the feed by farmers.

Hatchability

Hatchability of hatching eggs is showed in Table 5. The fertile eggs and hatchability of supplemented eggs tendency increased to compare with those in control eggs.

Addition Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa powders in the diets improved fertile eggs to compare with that from control treatment. This result may be the fact that herbal plant may provide some compounds that enhance digestion, then increase egg weight and fertility eggs, and also Mahmood and Al-Daraji (2011); and Moyo et al (2011) observed that Moringa oleifera leaves have higher levels of zinc and vitamin E, which can be useful to the hatchability of eggs. Similarly, Abuoghaba et al (2021) also reported that supplementation of Curcuma longa increased fertility eggs and hatchability. This may be because Curcuma longa powder is rich in iron, potassium, magnesium and vitamin B6, and the main component is a volatile oil, also there are other coloring agents called curcuminoids in Curcuma longa (Shiyou Li et al 2011). These compounds may affect the reduction of the embryonic mortality of the hatching eggs in the incubation and lead to higher chick numbers.

Conclusions

• Moringa oleifera powder supplemented in the diet at 1% tendency improved the egg production and egg yolk color of Ac hens to compare with Curcuma longa supplementation and control group.
  
  
• Both Moringa oleifera and Curcuma longa powders adding in the diets increased fertile eggs and hatchability compared with control eggs.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank to the manager of the farm for supplying all materials of the experiment. And also sincere gratitude thanks to Ms Duyen; Ms.Tuyen and Mr.Huy for taking care the experiment.

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