Table 5.

Effects of MLE on egg quality.

Items	Control group	HELP groups with MLE levels (%)					SEM	P-value
		0.00	0.04	0.40	0.80	1.20		A	L	Q
Eggshell thickness (mm)	0.33	0.35	0.38	0.37	0.33	0.37	0.01	0.298	0.644	0.718
Egg weight (g)	65.11b	57.62a	59.86a	65.99b	65.64b	61.87a	0.87	<0.001	0.073	<0.001
Egg shape index	1.30	1.29	1.31	1.34	1.32	1.33	0.01	0.250	0.043	0.106
Eggshell weight (g)	10.24	9.36	9.50	10.07	10.64	9.91	0.17	0.271	0.134	0.073
Yolk color	7.86a	8.57ab	8.63ab	8.88b	8.88b	9.38b	0.13	0.019	0.192	0.111
Egg yolk weight (g)	17.70ab	16.27a	16.36a	18.58b	18.16b	17.61ab	0.19	<0.001	0.514	<0.001
Albumen height (mm)	8.77	8.75	9.03	9.27	9.57	9.21	0.12	0.304	0.142	0.034
Haugh unit	91.60	94.38	94.92	95.62	95.87	95.86	0.69	0.483	0.361	0.597
Eggshell strength (N)	32.36	33.82	32.26	36.01	36.81	35.67	0.66	0.234	0.457	0.609

Abbreviations: A, P value of one-way ANOVA; L, P value of linear analysis; Q, P value of quadratic analysis.

^a,b,cIn the same row, different superscript lowercase letters indicate significant differences (P < 0.05).