Influence of natural zeolite on performance of laying hens and egg quality

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to study the effects of natural zeolite on the performance of laying hens. One hundred and eighty 37-week-old Babcock B-300 hens were fed with a diet containing 0, 20, 40, 60 and 80 g clinoptilolite/kg in an experiment consisting of 36 hens per treatment during a 4×28 days experimental period. All feeding programs were isocaloric and isonitrogenous. Hens were put at random into 5 treatment groups (12 replicates and 36 hens per treatment). No significant dietary effects were observed in terms of body weight, feed consumption, feed efficiency ratio, the number of eggs laid per hen, shell thickness, mortality or other criteria of egg quality (P>.05). Significant dietary effects of clinoptilolite feeding were observed in the form of a decrease in faecal moisture content (P<.05).