The balance of the gut microflora and the control of pathogenic microorganisms play an important role in the egg production and egg quality. Preservatives have been traditionally used to prevent infectious challenges derived from feed.

Cimenol ring is a natural compound of plant origin which acts synergistically with citric acid, providing a wide spectrum and selective microbicidal activity. This way, this combination acts as a preservative that eliminates pathogenic microorganisms like E. coli or Clostridium perfringens, while it promotes the balance of the beneficial gut microbiota, like Lactobacillus, and maintains gut welfare.

Introduction

A trial was carried out in an experimental farm to evaluate the effect of the cimenol ring on the productive performance and egg quality of laying hens.

Experimental design

Animals in the trial were 224 15-week-old Dekalb Brown laying hens. The trial lasted for 15 weeks and covered 3 weeks of rearing and a laying phase that started at week 18 of age.

Animals were distributed in four experimental groups following the below scheme:

• Control group: received a standard basal diet (SBD), without feed preservatives nor additional products for Salmonella
• Cimenol group: received SBD + cimenol ring in continuous administration at 0.5 kg/t.
• Organic acids group: received SBD + organic acids* in continuous administration at 1 kg/t.
• Formaldehyde group: received SBD + formaldehyde** continuously at 2 kg/t.

*Organic acids: orthophosphoric, citric, acetic, fumaric, tartaric and propylene glycol
**Formaldehyde: formaldehyde and propionic acid

Results

a. Rearing period

During the rearing stage (Chart 1), weight gain of the pullets remained similar, and the weekly weight gain at week 17 was significantly improved in the cimenol ring group (8.7% higher than the average of the two treated groups).

No significant differences were observed regarding the weekly feed intake between groups. Nevertheless, cimenol ring group significantly improved the feed conversion ratio (FCR) at week 17 (9.4% better than the average of groups with organic acids and formaldehyde).

Lastly, cimenol ring group obtained the best homogeneity rate (1.1% superior). There was no mortality nor morbidity in the rearing phase.

Chart 1. Productive results obtained at week 17 of the rearing period regarding the weekly weight gain (left graph), feed conversion rate (middle graph) and homogeneity (right graph). The percentages of improvement compare the cimenol ring group to the average value of the groups with organic acids and formaldehyde.

b. Production period

The cimenol ring group was the treatment that improved the laying rate the most (Chart 2) and had the highest average laying rate (72.36%) and total eggs produced in all the trial (134.02 kg), followed by organic acids group (68.15% and 119.62 kg), control group (66.17% and 115.58 kg) and formaldehyde group (62.65% and 107.96 kg).

Moreover, the cimenol ring group obtained the best feed conversion rate throughout the trial, showing the animals achieved a higher egg production with similar feed consumption.

Chart 2. Weekly laying rate and improvement (%) of each treatment compared to the control group.

The rate of broken eggs was significantly lower in the cimenol ring group (0.73%) compared to the organic acids and formaldehyde groups, which were of 2.33% and 8.56%, respectively.

Moreover, the cimenol ring group significantly improved the egg size in most of the weeks, with an average increase of 1.5 g compared to the other two treated groups (Chart 3). Despite producing bigger eggs, the cimenol ring group obtained greater shell thickness.

Chart 3. Average egg weight (g) and differences between groups.

Conclusions

Cimenol ring helps pullets to achieve good weight and better homogeneity than the organic acids and formaldehyde and improves the feed conversion rate.

In layers, the cimenol ring is the most effective to improve the laying rate, the amount of eggs produced and the feed conversion rate. It also obtains bigger eggs of a better quality, which results in higher incomes.

Organic acids seemed to have a positive impact on layers performance, but results were not as good as those of the cimenol ring. On the contrary, formaldehyde had a negative impact on performance and egg quality.

Besides, the cimenol ring is a natural plant-based compound with demonstrated long-term effectivity and broad spectrum of action at low dosage, which is safe for the beneficial flora, workers and machinery and has no restrictions in local regulations.

Cimenol ring is marketed by Biovet S.A. under the name “Alquermold Natural”