No abstract

A total number of 300 (225 ducks and 75 drakes) Sudani ducks, 28-wk-old were divided into five groups to investigate the effects of dietary L-carnitine (LC) supplementation on productive, hatching and physiological performance as well as nutrients digestibility coefficients. The results indicated that the productive performance and Semen quality parameters (ejaculate volume, sperms concentration and advanced motility) were significantly improved by LC supplementation (150-450 mg /kg diet) as compared to the control. Hatchability of fertile eggs (%) was significantly improved, while total embryonic mortality was significantly decreased by supplementing 300 and 450 mg LC/kg diet. Supplementing different dietary LC levels resulted in significantly high values of hemoglobin, red and white blood cells count and lymphocyte (l) cells percentage, while it decreased heterophils (H) cells and H/l ratio. Serum albumin, total cholesterol and AST enzyme values were significantly low in ducks fed diets supplemented with LC. Serum triglycerides were significantly the lowest by feeding 300 and 450 mg LC/kg diet. Nutrients digestibility coefficients were significantly improved in drakes fed diet supplemented with 450 mg LC/kg diet. Conclusively, dietary lC supplementation at 300 or 450 mg/kg for duck breeders in summer could improve productive, hatching and physiological performance and nutrients digestibility coefficients.

Two hundred and eighty eight of Sudani ducklings (144 from both males and females), 4-wks-old were used, weighed and divided into six experimental groups (three replicates each) for both sexes to investigate the effect of ducklings sex and dietary L-carnitine (LC) addition(0, 150, 300, 450, 600 and 750 mg/kg diet) in a factorial design (2 × 6) on growth performance, carcass traits and quality and blood constituents as well as economic efficiency under Egyptian summer conditions. Results indicated that, live body weight (LBW), body weight gain (BWG), feed consumption (FC) and production index (PI) were significantly (P≤0.01) higher for male ducklings than female, also, feed conversion ratio (FCR) was significantly (P≤0.05) improved during the whole experimental period (4-16 wks of age). However, dietary LC addition resulted in a significant (P≤0.01) improvement in BWG, FCR and PI during the experimental period than the control group. Abdominal fat and breast and thigh yield (%) were significantly higher for female than male ducklings. Eviscerated carcass and total edible parts (%) were significantly (P≤0.01) improved by supplementing different LC levels to the diet, while abdominal fat was significantly (P≤0.01) decreased. Breast yield (%) was significantly (P≤0.05) higher by feeding 450 mg LC/kg diet, only than the control, however, thigh yield (%) was significantly(P≤0.01) improved by feeding different LC levels except of 300 mg/kg. Furthermore, muscles ether extract (EE) content was significantly higher in both breast and thigh of female's ducklings than males, while crude protein (CP) was significantly decreased for female thigh muscles. Addition different LC levels to the diet resulted in a significant improvement of CP content for both breast and thigh muscles, while EE content was significantly decreased for them. Serum total cholesterol was significantly increased for female than male ducklings, whereas, both serum triglycerides and total cholesterol constituents were significantly decreased by supplementing different LC levels to the diet than the control. Supplementing different LC levels to the diet resulted in a significant increase in lymphocytes (L) cells (%), while heterophils (H) cells (%) and H/L ratio were significantly (P≤0.01) decreased than the control group. Net return and economic efficiency were significantly lowered for female ducklings than male, however, they significantly improved for ducklings fed different LC diets than those fed the control diet. These results indicated that dietary L-carnitine additionwith150 or 300 mg/kg could be maximize and improve the growth performance and carcass traits and quality as well as economic efficiency of Sudani ducklings especially males during growth period (4-16 wks of age) under Egyptian summer conditions.

No abstract

This study was conducted to investigate effect of dietary different levels of crude fiber on productive performance and economic efficiency for growing Domiaty ducks from 6 to 18 weeks of age and subsequent effect during laying period. A total number of 117 local growing Domiaty ducks (90♀+27♂), 6 weeks old were weighed and divided into three dietary treatments on design as follow: control diet with 3.5 % crude fiber while the other treatments were given higher levels of dietary crude fiber (4.77 and 6.23%) as a result of usage different levels of olive cake (OK). The results illustrated that dietary different levels of CF had no significant effect on body weight and body weight gain at the end of growing period. The same manner, no significant influence of dietary feed conversion ration. The diet included 6.23% CF recorded significantly the highest value of ether extract digestibility, on the other hand, two levels of CF resulted in a significant improvement in digestibility of crude fiber (CF) as compared to the control diet. Ducks fed control diet recorded significantly lower value of organic matter (OM) digestibility than those received diet contained 4.77% CF. Nitrogen retention was significantly increased by the diet with 4.77 and 6.23% CF compared to the control diet. The dietary different levels of CF lead to significantly higher HDL and ratio HDL/LDL than control. The ducks fed diet contained 4.77% CF reached to sexual maturity (SM) at earlier age (145 days) than control group by 8 days which reached to SM at 153 days. The diet with 4.77% CF significantly improved egg number/duck as a subsequent effect compared to control diet. It is noted that total embryonic mortality was decreased as a result from the previous grower diet contained 4.77% CF by about 9.9% and there are improvement in hatchability of fertile eggs produced from ducks fed the same diet by about 2.26% compared to the control diet. It could be concluded that the grower Domiaty duck's diet which contained moderate levels of CF (4.77 and 6.23%) did not have any harmful impact on productive performance and the diet with 4.77% CF can be used to maximize productive, reproductive performance and economic efficiency as a subsequent impact during laying period.