The Effects of Different Levels of Portulaca oleracea, Medicinal Plant, on Performance, Egg Quality, Blood Biochemical and Immunity Parameters of Mature Laying Hens

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of Portulaca oleracea (PO), me-dicinal plant, on performance, egg traits, blood biochemical and immunity parameters of laying hens. One hundred eighty Hi-Line (W-36 strain) mature laying hens 65 up to 76 weeks of age were allotted in a com-pletely randomized design consisting of 5 treatments and 3 replicates (12 birds per replicate). Treatment groups consisted of a control group (1) with no PO supplementation and experimental groups 2, 3, 4 and 5 which contained 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% of PO powder, respectively. Using different levels of PO sig-nificantly affected the performance, egg traits, blood biochemical and immunity parameters of laying hens (P < 0.05). The highest values for egg weight, egg production percentage, egg mass, feed intake, feed con-version ratio, egg yolk color index, albumin percentage and blood high density lipoprotein (HDL) were obtained by feeding 2.0% of PO . The highest level of blood hemoglobin was observed by feeding 1.0% of PO . The overall results showed that feeding Portulaca oleracea powder up to 2.0% in the diet has a positive effect on mature laying hens performance and egg traits.