Indian Journal of Poultry Science

An experiment was conducted to ascertain the influence of feeding probiotic during the late laying period on the performance of White Leghorn (WL) layer breeders (65–76 wk) and their progeny chicks. Two hundred and ten, WL layer breeders, aged 64 weeks, with an average of 62% hen day egg production were equally and randomly distributed into two groups having 21 replicates of five birds each and were housed in individual laying cages. They were placed on one of two dietary treatments: basal or basal with probiotic supplementation at a rate of 150 mg per kg feed. Supplementation of probiotic significantly (P<0.05) improved the egg production, feed conversion per kg egg mass, shell weight, shell thickness, shell breaking strength and serum calcium, and cholesterol concentration. However, feed intake, egg weight and concentration of phosphorus and protein in the serum were not influenced by dietary supplementation of probiotic. Similarly, the fertility and hatchability, day-old and 14^th day body weight, and mortality of chicks were not influenced due to probiotic supplementation in the diet of their dams. The results of the present study indicate that dietary supplementation of probiotics to the WL layer breeders during their late laying period improved the egg production, feed conversion and egg shell weight, however, no influence of feeding probliotics to dam reflected in the performances of their progeny.