Effects of dietary pomegranate seed oil addition to diets for laying hens on fatty acid profile of eggs

In an experiment with 60 laying hens (ISA Brown), 25 weeks of age, effects of dietary pomegranate seed oil supplementation on performance and egg quality were determined. In the 6-week experiment, hens were allocated to five dietary treatments (PSO0, PSO250, PSO500, PSO750 and PSO1000 with pomegranate seed oil addition at an increasing level from 0 to 1000 mg/kg diet respectively). Hens were allocated to 6 cages (replicates)/treatment of 2 hens each and received a diet at 120 g/hen/day.During the experiment, no differences (P > 0.05) occurred among pomegranate seed oil treatments in final body weight (1644 g), feed intake (119.5 g), production of cracked, thinshelled and shell-less eggs (0.011 eggs/hen/day) and egg weight (61.26 g). However, egg production and egg mass tended to be improved for hens receiving 250 and 500 mg of added pomegranate seed oil in the diet. Feed conversion ratio was tended to be reduced for hens of the PSO250 and PSO500 treatments compared to the other ones. In addition, eggshell weight and yolk index increased, with increasing dietary pomegranate seed oil inclusion levels. The increasing dietary pomegranate seed oil inclusion levels increased egg yolk dry matter content, ash content and antioxidant activity as measured with ferric reducing antioxidant power. Regarding the egg fatty acid profile, the contents of conjugated linoleic acid, saturated fatty acid, polyunsaturated fatty acids were increased. In conclusion, dietary pomegranate seed oil supplementation, at inclusion levels up to 1000 mg/kg of concentrate mixture, tended to improve performance of laying hens and some egg quality characteristics, and increased egg yolk conjugated linoleic acid and polyunsaturated fatty acids content indicating the potential to create enriched eggs.