VEZIR JANUZI, LUMTURI SENA, XHEVDET ELEZI
Faculty of Agriculture and Environment. Agricultural University of Tirana, Albania
Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary. University of Prishtina, Kosovo
Corresponding author: Vezir.Januzi@rks-gov.net
Abstract
The effect of addition of different levels of organic Selenium in laying hens’ diets for a period of 13 weeks was studied in this research. For this purpose, 400 layers of hybrid Lohman Brown, aged 39 weeks were equally divided into four groups. The first group, which was used a control one (C) was fed with the standard feed formula, while the feed used for the other three groups was supplemented with Organic Selenium (Se) – Sel-Plex®, Alltech, inc., respectively 0.2 (Experiment 1 – E1), 0.3 (Experiment 2 – E2) and 0.4 ppm (Experiment 3 – E3). The egg production was monitored on daily basis, while the egg quality and content of Se in eggs was measured at the end of the week six and thirteen. Layers’ performances, total egg weight, the egg white weight, shell weight and shell thickness were not affected by the level of feed supplementation with organic selenium. At the end of the experiment, a significant improvement (P≤0.05) of the yolk’s weight was observed, at the group E2 and E3, respectively supplemented with 0.3 and 0.4 ppm Organic Selenium, compared with the control group. The addition of Selenium in the layers’ feed significantly increased its concentration in both the yolk and the white of the egg in the two measurements performed. Results of this study showed that the addition of Organic Se in layers diet increased its content in the eggs.
Key words: Laying hen, Selenium, egg quality, feed
