Investigating the Effect of Adding Different Calcium Sources and Its Particle Size on Production Performance and Egg Quality in Laying Hens

The use of different sources of calcium with different particle sizes in laying hens and also the effects of calcium source type and size on bird production performance and egg quality, due to the effects of calcium source type and particle size on production performance and Egg quality has been reduced in laying hens.

This experiment was performed to investigate the effect of using different sources of calcium and its particle size on production performance and egg quality of Hy lin, W-80 Leghorn hens. For this purpose, 192 laying hens with similar body weight and production were selected And experiment in a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement (2 × 3) with three sources of calcium (lumyashel, oyster shel, calcium carbonate) and two particle sizes (1- fine with particles <2 mm and 2-mixture, ‌‌ a mixture of Particles < 2 and 2-4 mm), 4 replicates and 8 birds per replicate were performed for 8 weeks from 42-50 weeks of age.

The results showed that calcium carbonate had the lowest solubility and fine particles were more soluble than large particles (p<0.05). The main effect of  calcium source on feed intake was significant(p<0.05).  The main and interaction effects of calcium source and its particle size on feed conversion ratio, egg weight and number of broken eggs were not significant (p> 0.05). The effect of main and interactions of source and particle size on the characteristics of internal traits of eggs (Albumen percentage, yolk percentage, Albumen height, HU unit and yolk index) did not significant (p> 0.05). But albumen pH showed a significant difference,The lowest pH was related to the diet containing lumyashel with a value of 9 and the highest pH was related to the oyster shell(p<0.05). The main and interaction effecs of calcium source and particle size on egg external quality, shell percentage, shell thickness, shell ash were not significant (p>0.05), but the specific gravity of eggs was significantly affected by the main effects of the calcium source (p<0.05), and the lowest and highest values were for lumyashell and oester shel.

The final result showed that calcium carbonate had the lowest solubility among the calcium sources used in this study and fine particles were more soluble than large particles. However, no significant difference was observed between internal and external egg quality traits and production performance of birds using different calcium sources and different particle sizes.