Effects of Coconut Oil Supplementation on Growth Performance, Egg Production, and Egg Characteristics in Merawang Chickens

Harahap, Ratna Sholatia and Gushairiyanto, . and Nurhayati, . and Wiyanto, Eko and Wibowo, Sarwo Edy and Daulay, Winni Liani and Depison, . (2026) Effects of Coconut Oil Supplementation on Growth Performance, Egg Production, and Egg Characteristics in Merawang Chickens. World's Veterinary Journal. 182 - 190. ISSN 23224568

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Abstract

Feed plays an important role in influencing the growth and reproductive performance of chickens. In recent years, the use of natural feed additives in chicken production has attracted considerable attention from both the scientific and commercial communities. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of supplementing Merawang chickens with coconut oil on their growth performance, egg production, and egg characteristics. Subsequently, 240-day-old chicken Merawang chickens were used, divided into four treatments with four replications each. The groups consisted of a basic diet without coconut oil (T0), a basic diet with 1 coconut oil (T1), a basic diet with 2 coconut oil (T2), and a basic diet with 3 coconut oil (T3). The Merawang chickens were reared for seven months, kept in communal cages for four months according to the prescribed treatment, and then transferred to battery cages when they entered the egg-laying phase, remaining there until seven months of age. Parameters measured included body weight, body weight gain, morphometric measurements, feed efficiency, egg production, and characteristics. The results revealed that T1 and T2 significantly improved growth performance parameters compared to other treatments, especially in body weight, body weight gain, and different morphometric traits such as beak length, head height, chest width, upper thigh length, third toe length, pubic width, neck length, upper body length, back length, lower body length, and tibia circumference. The T1 and T2 also significantly affected egg production and egg characteristics of Merawang chickens compared to T0 and T3, including hen day production (HDP), egg length, egg width, and egg circumference. Consequently, it is determined that adding 1-2 of coconut oil to Merawang chickens' feed can enhance growth performance, egg production, and egg characteristics. © The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Coconut oil; Egg characteristics; Egg production; Growth performance; Merawang chicken
Subjects:	S Agriculture > SF Animal culture
Divisions:	World's Veterinary Journal (WVJ)
Page Range:	182 - 190
Journal or Publication Title:	World's Veterinary Journal
Journal Index:	Scopus
Volume:	16
Number:	1
Publisher:	Scienceline Publication
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.54203/scil.2026.wvj17
ISSN:	23224568
Depositing User:	Dr. Alireza Sadeghi
URI:	https://eprints.science-line.com/id/eprint/1748

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