Maintenance of the stability of egg production by breeding the “hisex brown” cross hens

The termination of the supply of brooding eggs and day-old young stock from a number of European countries, on occasion of the border closure due to the pandemic, many enterprises are experiencing a shortage of breeding material. In this regard, the preservation and increase in the production of hatching eggs in domestic breeding reproducers is an urgent task. As is known, the use of prebiotic feed additives containing lactulose in the diets of chickens can improve their productivity and quality characteristics of eggs, reduce feed costs, and most importantly, partially reduce or completely replace the use of feed antibiotics. The presented article examines the effect of new lactulose-containing feed additives “Kumelakt-1” and “Laktuvet-1” on the productive capacity of hens of the parent flock and the quality indicators of hatching eggs. An increase in the digestibility of feed nutrients was established, which entailed an increase in the intensity of egg-laying in chickens, which in the experimental groups increased by 1.45 and 1.78%, and feed costs for the production of 10 eggs decreased by 0.04 and 0.05 kg. An excess of the mass of hatching eggs was recorded by 1.51 and 1.96%. The shell mass increased in the I experimental group by 3.01, in the II-by 3.17%, and the thickness-by 1.70 and 2.84%. The activation of metabolic processes in the body of birds of the experimental groups, against the background of the bifidogenic effect of lactulose, led to a more intensive digestion and assimilation of feed nutrients, an increase in the egg productivity of chickens, an improvement in the morphometric parameters of hatching eggs.