Studies on carbon-13 turnover in eggs and blood of commercial layers

Abstract

This paper aimed at evaluating the influence of diets containing different isotopic values of carbon-13 turnover on the half-life of egg (yolk + albumen), yolk and albumen individually, and blood of poultry using delta‰13C isotopic variation. Commercial layers fed four experimental isocaloric and isonitrogenous diets (RC4, RC3, RMC4 and RMC3) containing different isotopic values, during an experimental period of 56 days. Turnover of the studied tissues was influenced by the experimental diets. Blood and albumen were more influenced by dietary treatments as compared to egg and yolk. The RMC3 diet induced better performance (better feed intake and higher egg production) due faster rate of carbon substitution than the RC4 diet, and lower half-life for egg (yolk + albumen), yolk, and albumen.

Keywords

• Albumen
• carbon-13
• yolk
• blood
• egg
• comercial laying hens