Effect of wild ginseng on the laying performance, egg quality, cytokine expression, ginsenoside concentration, and microflora quantity of laying hens

Habeeb Tajudeen¹, JunYoung Mun¹^,^*, SangHun Ha¹^,^**, Abdolreza Hosseindoust¹^,^***, SuHyup Lee²^,^****, JinSoo Kim¹^,^*****

¹Department of Animal Industry Convergence, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea.

²Department of Swine Science, Korean National University of Agriculture and Fisheries, Jeonju 54874, Korea.

^*****Corresponding Author: JunYoung Mun, Department of Animal Industry Convergence, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea, Republic of. E-mail: 202016455@kangwon.ac.kr .

^*****Corresponding Author: SangHun Ha, Department of Animal Industry Convergence, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea, Republic of. E-mail: kayne7602@kangwon.ac.kr.

^*****Corresponding Author: Abdolreza Hosseindoust, Department of Animal Industry Convergence, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea, Republic of. E-mail: hosseindoust@kangwon.ac.kr.

^*****Corresponding Author: SuHyup Lee, Department of Swine Science, Korean National University of Agriculture and Fisheries, Jeonju 54874, Korea, Republic of. E-mail: lsh979@gmail.com.

^*****Corresponding Author: JinSoo Kim, Department of Animal Industry Convergence, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea, Republic of. Phone: +82-102566-5961. E-mail: Kjs896@Kangwon.ac.kr.

© Copyright 2022 Korean Society of Animal Science and Technology. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Oct 01, 2022; Revised: Nov 05, 2022; Accepted: Nov 17, 2022

Published Online: Dec 20, 2022

Abstract

The experiment was carried out to study the effect of Korean wild ginseng adventitious root supplementation on the laying performance, egg quality, cytokine expression, ginsenoside concentration, and microflora quantity of Institut de selection Animale (ISA) brown laying hens at 24 weeks old. A total of 90 laying hens were subjected to a completely randomized design at three treatments, five repetitions and six laying hens per replicate. The experiments were divided by diets into the basic feed (CON), basic feed + 0.1% wild ginseng (WG1), and basic feed + 0.5% wild ginseng (WG2). The feeding trial was carried out over a duration of 12 weeks after an initial acclimation period of 2 weeks. Feeds and water were administered <italic>ad libitum</italic> in mash form, and light was available for 16 hours per day. At the end of study, hen-day egg production (HDEP), average egg weight (AEW), and egg mass (EM) were increased (<italic>p </italic><0.05) in WG2 at week 12. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) was decreased (<italic>p </italic><0.05) in WG2 at week 12. The ginsenoside content in egg yolk was increased (<italic>p </italic><0.05) in laying hens in the WG2 treatment at week 12. Relative expression of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) was reduced (<italic>p </italic><0.05) in the WG supplemented diets at week 12. The fecal microflora quantity of <italic>Lactobacillus was increased </italic>(<italic>p </italic><0.05) <italic>in WG2 at week 8 to week 12, and </italic><italic>Escherichia coli</italic> (<italic>E. coli)</italic> was significantly decreased (<italic>p </italic><0.05) in the WG2 at week 12. We concluded that the result observed in the HDEP, AEW, EM and FCR was due to an increase in ginsenoside content, leading to an improvement in the TNF-α, and fecal microflora quantity such as <italic>Lactobacillus and E. coli</italic> in the WG2 supplemented diets. We therefore recommend the use of WG at application level 0.5% per basal diet for optimum laying performance in layer hens.

Keywords: Ginsenoside; Saponin; Tumor necrosis factor alpha; Hen-day egg production; Inflammatory cytokine