ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microorganisms in Vertebrate Digestive Systems
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1582516
Comparative analysis of intestinal and reproductive function in older laying hens with three egg laying levels
Provisionally accepted
Jianping Wang*
Taoyan Qiang
Keying Zhang
Qiufeng Zeng
Xuemei Ding
Shiping BaiYan LiuShengyu XuYue XuanShanshan Li- Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
In production, older laying hens exhibit different levels of egg production, though these hens with the same genetic background, age, and feeding conditions. It is speculated that this may be due to varying intestinal function in laying hens with different egg production levels. To verify this speculation, this experiment aims to compare the intestinal function in laying hens with different egg production levels.After a six-week pre-feeding with 1000 hens, aged 60 weeks, we observed that the overall egg-laying rate for the flock was roughly 85%. Based on the data, a total of 120 healthy Lohmann Pink laying hens, aged 66 weeks, were selected for the experiment, which established three treatment groups, low egg-laying rate (LR, 76.89%+1.65%), medium egg-laying rate (MR, 84.96% + 1.01%), and high egg-laying rate (HR, 93.12% + 1.73%). The results indicated that the HR group exhibited significantly enhanced egg production, egg mass, feed efficiency, and qualified egg rate over the 12-week period (P<0.05). Egg quality parameters, including Haugh units and eggshell strength, were also markedly elevated in the HR group (P<0.05). Additionally, ovarian tissues of HR group demonstrated substantially increased activities of antioxidant enzymes, such as catalase (CAT), total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), and glutathione (GSH) (P<0.05). Concurrently, the mRNA expression of the antioxidant gene nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) in both ovarian and reproductive tract tissues was significantly upregulated, while the expression of the pro-apoptotic gene cysteinyl aspartate 3 (Caspase 3) was downregulated (P<0.05). These results suggest that hens with higher egg-laying rates demonstrated enhanced production performance and egg quality, which may be attributed to better intestine health (better barrier function, higher enrichment of Faecalibacterium and Lactobacillus in the cecum) and reproductive system health (improved antioxidant capacity). Additionally, the SIRT1-related apoptosis pathway and Nrf2 signaling pathway were associated with the enhancement of ovarian function in this study.
Keywords: different egg-laying rates, Production performance, egg quality, Intestinal function, Ovarian function
Received: 25 Feb 2025; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Qiang, Zhang, Zeng, Ding, Bai, Liu, Xu, Xuan and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jianping Wang, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.