THE EFFECT OF DRY CAPER (Capparis spinosa) FRUIT ON EGG PRODUCTION AND QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF LAYING HENS

This study was conducted to determine the effect of increasing dietary inclusion of dry Caper (Capparis spinosa) fruit (DCF) on egg production and quality characteristics of laying hens between 20 and 32 weeks of age. Four groups of commercial hens (ATAK-S) were fed with diets containing 0, 5, 10 and 15 g DCF/kg. The results showed that final body weight, feed intake, shape index (SI) and morning hen–day egg yield were influenced by dietary supplementation of DCF (P 0.05). Hen– day egg production (HDP) value of commercial hens groups was 73.47%, 56.67%, 54.18% and 51.72% respectively. The effect of increased the levels of DCF on egg weight, specific gravity, shell breaking strength, shell thickness, surface area, albumen pH, albumen index (AI), yolk index (YI), shell weight and haugh unit (HU) was not statistically significant (P 0.05) during the entire experiment. The lightness (L*) and redness (a*) values for egg shell color were similar (P 0.05) in the DCL supplemented groups as compared to the control group. The yellowness (b*), Hue angle (H), chroma (C*) and ΔE* values were lower (P 0.05) in 15 g DFC/kg group when compared with the control. Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and total phenolics amount of DCF were 43.75±0.680 mmol trolox/kg, 60.03±3.710 mmol TEAC/kg and 3.16±0.060 g gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/kg, respectively. Based on the results from the current study, the dietary supplementation with dry DCF had adverse effects on productivity performance traits and egg quality.