Evaluation of Production Performance and Some Qualitative Characteristics of Eggs in the Late Stages of Laying Hens Using Some Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Strategies

Since inflammation is considered as one of the major challenges in different parts of the livestock industry, this study was conducted to evaluate the inflammatory strategy of combination and simultaneous usage of beta-2 agonist and glucocorticoid drugs on some performance characteristics in laying hens at late production stage and some of qualitative characteristics. The research was conducted in a completely randomized design, during a period of about 4 weeks, using 112 laying hens of High Line W-36 strains (older than 90 weeks). Birds were randomly divided to seven treatments (including one level of beta-2 agonist drug, one level of glucocorticoid drug, three combined levels of these drugs, one beta-blocking treatment and control) with 4 replicates per treatment and 4 birds were put on each replicate. The results indicated that the laying percentage and feed intake increased in beta-agonist and beta-blocker treatments (P <0.05) and decreased significantly in glucocorticoid and combination treatments (P <0.05). Also, in beta-2 agonist treatment, body weight and egg weight were significantly increased (P <0.05). In contrast, these parameters significantly decreased (P <0.05) in glucocorticoid and combination treatments. However, shell thickness significantly increased (P <0.05) in some combination treatments. Therefore, it can be concluded that beta-agonist as a stimulant of inflammation (in some tissues such as the ovary) has a positive effect on the performance parameters, while egg qualitative parameters performed better in the glucocorticoid and combined treatments which act as anti-inflammatory stimulants in the body.