The effect of different levels of walnut leaves (Juglans regia L.) powder and Vitamin E dietary supplementation on the antioxidant activity of blood, performance and egg traits in commercial laying hens

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of different dietary levels of walnut leaves powder and vitamin E supplementation on blood antioxidant status, production performance and egg quality characteristics in commercial laying hens. A total number of 216 leghorn Hy-line W-36 (70 week old) strain laying hens used the completely randomized design were divided into 6 groups with 3 replicates and 12 hens per each replicate. Treatments included 100 or 200 mg/kg Vitamin E and 1, 2 or 3 percent of walnut leaves powder and control treatment. The results showed that the using of different levels of vitamin E and Walnut leaves has significant effects on plasma antioxidant capacity (P<0.05), so that the 2 percent of the Walnut leaves treatment have most and control treatment have lowest. The concentration of Malondialdehyde in blood (as index of oxidation of lipids) were not affected by treatments (P>0.05). Also experimental groups were not affected on the percentage of egg production, egg weight, egg mass and feed conversion rate (P>0.05), but feed intake in the 200 mg/kg vitamin E treatment and 2 and 3 percent Walnut leaves treatments decrease (P<0.05). The egg yolk color were significant increase by walnut leaves (P<0.05), but the other quality characteristics were not affected by the treatments (P>0.05). We concluded that walnut leaves could be a new feed additive as antioxidant in poultry nutrition