PERFORMANCE AND HAEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF LAYING HENS FED DIETS SUPPLEMENTED WITH SELENIUM AND VITAMIN E

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of supplemental selenium and vitamin E on performance and blood profile of laying hens. In a completely randomised design, ISA brown hens (n=192) at week 20 of age were assigned to six experimental diets: T1 (Basal diet), T2 (Basal diet + 0.5 mg selenium), T3 (Basal diet + 1.0 mg selenium), T4 (Basal diet + 1.5 mg selenium), T5 (Basal diet + 20 mg vitamin E), T6 (Basal diet + 40 mg vitamin E). Each treatment was replicated four times with eight birds per replicate. Data were recorded daily for performance characteristics. At week 26, blood was sampled from hens and analysed using standard procedures. Supplemental selenium and vitamin E had no significant effect (p>0.05) on hens‟ performance. However, dietary supplemental selenium and vitamin E had significant influence on eosinophils and monocytes. Eosinophils of hens on T1 (4.25) was similar to 4.00, 3.50, 4.33 and 3.75 recorded for hens on T2, T3, T4 and T5, respectively but higher than 1.33 obtained for hens on T6. Similarly, monocyte value inT1 (2.0) was similar (p>0.05) to  T2 (3.25) and T3 (3.25) but lower than 4.00, 3.75 and 4.00 obtained in hens on T4, T5 and T6, respectively. It was therefore concluded that supplementation of vitamin E and selenium up to 40 mg/kg and 1.5 mg/kg, respectively had no significant effects on hen‟s performance.