ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Dietary Energy Levels Alter Production Performance, Egg Quality, and Intestinal Health of Wenshui Green-shell Layers in the Peak Laying Period
Provisionally accepted
- College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Non-Grain Feed Resources (Co-construction by Ministry and Province), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, China
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Introduction: The Wenshui green-shell layers is a new layer breed, and the appropriate metabolizable energy (ME) have not been identified as the lack of breed-specific feeding standards. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of dietary energy levels on production performance, egg quality and intestinal health of Wenshui green-shell layers to identify appropriate ME in the peak laying period. Methods: A total of 600 33-week-old Wenshui green-shell layers were selected and randomly assigned to five treatment groups, with eight replicates of 15 laying hens each. The hens were fed with diets with ME level of 2,400 (ME2400), 2,500 (ME2500), 2,600 (ME2600), 2,700 (ME2700) and 2,800 (ME2800) kcal/kg for 42 d. Results and discussion: The results showed that the production performance of layers showed a quadratic curvilinear change with ME levels increase, and the ME2700 group obtained the optimal production performance and dry matter apparent availability. The serum albumin and triglyceride contents were linearly increased with the ME levels increase, while serum total antioxidant capacity of the ME2700 group was significantly higher than that in other groups. Additionally, egg quality was showed the quadratic curvilinear improvement, while the nutrient contents in eggs and superoxide dismutase activity in egg albumen were increased with increasing ME levels. Besides, the ME2700 group had a better morphology in oviduct and small intestine. Energy levels regulated the intestinal microbiota composition, notably ME2700 increased the relative abundance of Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut__group. On the other hand, the abundance of Bacteroides was negatively correlated with egg and albumen weight, while that of Fusobacterium was positively correlated with egg yolk ratio. In conclusion, the appropriate dietary ME level was 2700 kcal/kg, which could improve production performance, egg quality and intestinal health in Wenshui green-shell layers during peak laying period.
Keywords: Wenshui Green-shell layers, appropriate metabolizable energy, Production performance, egg quality, intestinal microbiota
Received: 30 Oct 2025; Accepted: 28 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Di, Lu, Jiang, Yuan, Shuzhen, Yang and Jiao. 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: Ning Jiao
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