Abstract

A The use of probiotics, yeast, and other natural feed additives in poultry feeds has received a lot of attention in recent years. The increased public awareness and opposition to the use of antibiotics as a growth promoter has sparked a lot of interest. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of multi-strain effective microorganisms (EM), turmeric powder (TP), and their combination (EM-TP) on fertility, hatchability, and chick quality of White Leghorn layer chickens. A total of 144 White Leghorn hens aged 26 weeks were assigned into four treatments with three replications for each treatment (12 layer chickens and 2 cocks per replications). The treatments were consisting of no additive or control (CTL), control + 0.5 ml/lit EM, control + 0.5% TP, and control + 0.25 ml/lit EM + 0.25% TP (EM-TP) which was arranged in a complete randomized design. There was no significant difference in embryonic mortality at different growth stages among treatments while the highest fertility was for EM. The lowest hatchability on fertile egg and total egg basis was observed in hens fed the control diet. Hatchability on the total egg basis for TP was lower than that of EM. The lowest average chick weight and length values were for the control treatment. The yield percentage for the control was lower than those fed a diet containing EM and a combination of EM and TP. There were no significant differences in the visual score of chick quality measurement among treatments. In conclusion, the use of EM and TP alone and its combination as an additive to the diet of White Leghorn layer chickens improved hatchability percentage, chick weight at hatch, and chick length. Further study is suggested to determine the optimum level of EM and TP inclusion in layer breeder diet to achieve the desired beneficial outcome on fertility, hatchability, and chick quality traits.