Effect of dietary inclusion of probiotics and prebiotics on external egg quality traits in White Leghorn layers

A 16 week feeding trial was carried out to study the influence of dietary inclusion of probiotics and prebiotics on livability, egg shape index and egg shell quality parameters. A total of 140 White Leghorn layers in the age group of 22 to 38 weeks were divided randomly into seven experimental groups containing 4 replications of 5 birds each. In (T1) control group layers were fed a basal diet formulated as per BIS (2007) standards. In treatment groups T2, T3 and T4 hens were fed control diet supplemented with probiotics (containing 5×108 cfu/g of Lactobacillus fermentum, 1×109 cfu/g of Bacillus spp. and 1×109 cfu/g of Saccharomyces cerevisiae) @ 0.5g, 1.0g and 2.0g Kg-1 feed, respectively, and layers in experimental groups T5, T6 and T7 were fed basal diet added with prebiotics (mannan oligosaccharide of Saccharomyces cell wall-47gm, formic acid-32gm, HSCAS-upto 1Kg) @ 0.5g, 1.0 g and 2.0 g Kg-1 feed, respectively. Study results revealed that there was (P