The seed beetle Stator limbatus adjusts egg size in response to the quality of the oviposition host, laying small eggs on the high quality host, Acacia greggii seeds, and larger eggs on the poor quality host, Cercidium floridum seeds. We examined various proximate mechanisms of this egg-size plasticity. Once exposed to a new host, it takes 24 to 48 h for females to change the size eggs they lay...

this present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary inclusion of 4, 8 and 12 g kg-1 phytogenic feed additives mixture on performance, egg quality, ovary parameters, serum biochemical parameters and yolk trimethylamine level in laying hens. the results of experiment have shown that egg weight was increased by supplementation of 12 g kg-1 feed additive whereas egg production, feed...

A total number of 225 Fayoumi hens 34 weeks old , were used in this experiment to study the effect of supplementing layer diet with 0.2% casein (c) with or without 0.015% iodine as 0.02% potassium iodide (KI) in drinking water on the performance and egg quality. The experiment continued for 90 days. Birds were randomly divided into three groups , each group contained 3 replicates of 25 each . B...

This study was conducted to determine the effect of hen production cycle (HPC) and the effect of egg weight (EW) at the same egg production level on egg quality, egg composition, hatchability, duckling quality, and first-week BW in Pekin ducks. For HPC, hatching eggs were obtained from different Pekin-duck breeder flocks, aged 31 wk for the first production cycle (HPC1) and 78 wk for the second...

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different levels of L-carnitine on productive performance, egg quality and blood parameters in laying hens. Forty-eight Hy-Line W-36 egg Layers were weighed at 90 weeks of age and randomly allocated into 16 cages (three hens per cage). Four dietary treatments were prepared by supplementing L-carnitine (0, 50, 100 and 150 mg/kg of diet)...

Background: Acute high dose exposure to teratogenic chemicals alters the proper development of an embryo leading to infertility, impaired fecundity, and few viable offspring. However, chronic exposure to sub-toxic doses of teratogens during early development may also have long-term impacts on egg quality and embryo viability. Methods: To test the hypothesis that low dose exposure during early d...

This research aimed to compare the effects of pigments extracted from dried petal meal of marigold flower and synthetic pigments on productive performance of laying hens, egg quality and antioxidant properties of the egg. A total of 64 laying hens, aged 75 weeks, were distributed in a completely randomized design in 4 treatments and 4 replications containing 4 hens per cages. Experimental group...