Seyede Asma Mousavi; Seyed Amir Hossein Mahdavi; Ahmad Riasi; Ali Sadeghi-Sefidmazgi
Volume 17, Issue 2 , October 2015, , Pages 321-333
Abstract
The effects of dietary inclusion of medicinal plants’ by-product mixture on performance, the relative internal organ weight, ileal microbial counts, and small intestinal and liver morphologic alterations in laying hens receiving different omega-6 to omega-3 ratios as a 2×3 factorial arrangements ...
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The effects of dietary inclusion of medicinal plants’ by-product mixture on performance, the relative internal organ weight, ileal microbial counts, and small intestinal and liver morphologic alterations in laying hens receiving different omega-6 to omega-3 ratios as a 2×3 factorial arrangements with three levels of plants’ by-product (zero, 2.5 and five percent) and two omega-6 to omega-3 ratios based on completely randomized design containing six treatments with four replicates of five birds each. Feeding low dietary omega-6 to omega-3 ratio to hens led to a significant increase in the relative spleen weight, the number and diameter of lamina propria lymphoid follicles and middle egg production percentage (P=0.05), and a reduction in the relative liver weight and hepatic fat percentage (P<0.05). Furthermore, dietary inclusion of plants’ by-product mixture improved villi height, the numbers and diameter of lamina propria lymphoid follicles, the number of goblet cells (P<0.05) as well as feed conversion ratio (P=0.08). Hepatic malondialdehyde concentration and ileal Escherichia coli population was decreased (P<0.01) in hens given plants’ by-product mixture. Therefore, our findings indicated that low dietary omega-6 to omega-3 ratio could improve egg production slightly, and administration of five percent of medicinal plants’ by-product mixture as a result of synergistic effect expressions could improve intestinal and hepatic health indices as well as feed conversion ratio in laying hens.