EFFECT OF ADDING FENNEL SEEDS (FOENICULUM VULGARE L.) TO DIETS ON PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF LAYING HENS

This study was conducted in the poultry farm of the Department of Animal Production / College of Agriculture / University of Anbar, during the period from 43 to 54 week, with the aim of study the effect of adding Fennel seeds (Foeniculum vulgare L.) to the diets on the productive performance of laying hens Seventy-two laying hens of Lohmann Brown breed, aged 43 weeks were used in this experiment. The layer hens were distributed randomly in to six treatments with four replicates per treatment (3 hens/ replicate). The treatments were T1: (Positive control) based diet containing 1% hydrogenated vegetable fat, T2: (negative control) based diet containing 1% animal fat, while treatments T3, T4, T5 and T6 The based diet contained 1% animal fat + supplementation of 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 1% Fennel seeds powder sequentially. The results showed were significant (P≤0.05) differences in productive traits of addition treatments, the treatment T6 was significantly (P≤0.05) increased compared with other treatments in (Hen House Production%, egg weight and egg mass) and a significant improvement (P ≤0.05) in feed conversion ratio, while treatment T4 was significantly (P≤0.05) increased compared with other treatment.