Performance, Egg Characteristics, Hematological and Serum Biochemical Profiles of Laying Hens Fed Varying Levels of Cerium Chloride and Oxide

The effects of feeding varying levels of cerium chloride and oxide on the performance, egg qualities, hema-tological and serum biochemical parameters of 240 laying hens at 24 weeks of age were studied. The ce-rium chloride (CeCl) and cerium oxide (CeO) experimental diets were allotted to 120 pullets each, ran-domly divided into 4 treatments (0, 50, 100 and 150 mg/kg diet each of CeCl and CeO) with each treatment replicated 5 times, respectively, in a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement. The experiment lasted for a period of six-teen weeks. It was observed that CeCl and CeO significantly (P<0.05) enhanced the various performances of the laying hens. The inclusion levels of the cerium sources significantly (P<0.05) improved most of the external and internal egg quality parameters studied with the best results recorded among the pullets fed CeCl and CeO at 150 mg/kg diet. The hematological and most of the serum biochemical indices of the pul-lets fed the experimental diets were not significantly (P>0.05) affected. However, significant (P<0.05) in-crease in both alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase concentrations were observed when the inclusion level of the cerium sources was elevated to 150 mg/kg diet. Hence, the use of cerium chloride and oxide as feed additives in place of antibiotics would be a welcome development if the inclusion level does not exceed the tolerable limit of 100 mg/kg diet.