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Ntinopoulos, E.S., 2020. The effect of dietary lavender essential oil supplementation on performance and egg quality of laying hens. Master of Science Τhesis, Specialization “Precision Livestock Systems” of the Postgraduate Studies Programme “Master in Innovative Systems of Sustainable Agricultural Production”, Department of Agriculture, International Hellenic University, Greece, pp. 1–98. In an experiment with 30 laying hens (ISA White), 79 weeks of age, the effect of dietary supplementation of lavender essential oil (LEO), on hens production properties and egg quality was studied. In the experiment, which lasted 8 weeks, hens were allocated into three experimental groups/treatments (LEO 0, LEO 500 and LEO 1000) of 10 hens each, placed in 5 cages (repetitions)/treated hens (2 hens) and received a restricted diet, 130 g/hen/day). Lavender essential oil (LEO) was added to the diet at 0, 500 and 1000 mg/kg for the treatments LEO 0 (control), LEO 500 and LEO 1000, respectively. During the experiment, no differences (P> 0.05) in final body weight (1.645 g), feed intake (121.0 g), egg production (0.869 eggs/hen/day), production of cracked, thin-shelled and shell-less eggs (0.014 eggs/hen/day), egg weight (63.91 g), egg mass (55.65 g) and feed efficiency (2,203 g feed/g egg mass). In addition, egg shape index (72.97 vs. 75.69) and albumin index (10.39 vs. 11.38) increased (L: P <0.05) and egg length (60.04 mm vs. 58.54 mm) decreased (L: P <0.05), with increasing levels of lavender essential oil content. Other characteristics of egg quality were unaffected. No differences (P>0.05) occurred among LEO treatments in yolk dry (D.M.) matter (42,92 g D.M./100 g) and albumen dry matter (8.96 g D.M./100 g). The yolk water soluble-protein content (71.39 vs. 46.05 mg D.M./100 g ) decreased (L: P <0.05) and the yolk lipid content in egg yolk (62.75 vs. 59.08 mg D.M./100 g) decreased (L: P <0, 05) as the level of lavender essential oil content was increasing. The antioxidant activity in the ABTS radical cation scavenging activity (267.40 vs. 564.70μg TE/mg yolk DM) increased (L: P <0.05) as an increase was also recorded in the DPPH radical scavenging capacity assay (23.62 vs. 48.47 mg TE/g yolk DM) (L: P <0.05) with the maximum value being in both parameters in LEO 1000 treatment. Other characteristics in the quality and chemical composition of the egg were not affected. Dietary LEO supplementation, at inclusion levels up to 1000 mg/kg of concentrate mixture, did not affect performance of laying hens and most egg quality characteristics.