Effects of phenyllactic acid on production performance, egg quality parameters, and blood characteristics in laying hens

Organic acids have been widely used as feed additives to replace antibiotics in livestock feeds. Data on the use of phenyllactic acid (PLA) are lacking. The effects of PLA on production performance, egg quality parameters, and blood characteristics in laying hens were studied in a 35-d experiment. A total of 240 ISA Brown 36-wk-old layers were divided into the following 4 treatments: 1) control (basal diet), 2) control + 0.1% PLA, 3) control + 0.2% PLA, and 4) control + 0.3% PLA. Although supplementing the diet with PLA did not affect ADFI and FE, it linearly improved egg production rate, eggshell breaking strength, and Haugh units. Egg weight, eggshell thickness, and egg yolk color were not significantly altered by supplementing the diet with PLA. White blood cell, red blood cell, total protein, and albumin concentrations were higher in the control + 0.1% PLA and control treatment groups (P < 0.05), whereas the groups fed the control + 0.2% PLA and control + 0.3% PLA diets had greater (P < 0.05) lymphocyte concentrations. In conclusion, PLA may exert some positive effects to the immune system and egg production over the short term. It may be beneficial to supplement the diets of laying hens with PLA in the absence of antibiotics. This experiment involved a small experimental sample and a short time, so the beneficial effects of PLA should be studied further in commercial farms over the long term.