Effects of novel feed additives in wheat based diets on performance, carcass and intestinal tract characteristics of quail

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of the supplementation of an antibiotic growth promoter or novel feed additives with or without a xylanase-based enzyme complex to wheat-based diets on the growth performance, carcass yields and quality and intestinal characteristics (length of the total and small intestine, pH and viscosity of digesta, microflora) of Japanese quail. Eight hundred and forty day-old male quail chicks were randomly assigned to 14 groups of similar mean weight each of which included three replicates of 20 quail. The control group received a wheat-soyabean meal basal diet. In the treatment groups, the basal diet was supplemented with one of the following: an antibiotic, oregano essential oil, cinnamon essential oil, oregano essential oil plus cinnamon essential oil, a probiotic, a mannanoligosaccharide, and the same diets plus an enzyme. During the 35-d growth period there were no significant differences in body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI) or feed conversion ratio (FCR) of quail between dietary treatments. The use of oregano essential oil plus cinnamon essential oil or mannanoligosaccharide without the enzyme complex in the quail diets decreased plasma total cholesterol level compared to the control diet. The dietary supplementation of AGP, oregano essential oil, cinnamon essential oil, oregano essential oil plus cinnamon essential oil without the enzyme complex decreased plasma triglyceride levels compared with the control diet. When oregano essential oil, cinnamon essential oil, oregano oil plus cinnamon oil, a probiotic or a mannanoligosaccharide with an enzyme complex were used in a wheat based quail diet, the intestinal viscosity was significantly decreased compared to the control diet. Although the use of essential oils in combination with the enzyme complex, a probiotic and a mannanoligosaccharide with or without the enzyme complex in the wheat based diet significantly reduced the intestinal viscosity compared to the control diet, these treatments negatively decreased plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride.

Testing Novel Eubiotic Additives: Its Health and Performance Effects in Commercially Raised Farm Animals

“…This result obtained from our study confirmed the previous results: under normal practical conditions, the beneficial effects of dietary supplementation of microbial feed additives (probiotics/eubiotics) in several poultry species were not regulated by any changes in voluntary FI (Gao et al, 2008;Sarica et al, 2009), but they have a significant effect on the alleviation of reduced FI and depressed birds' performance under subclinical infections (Kulshreshtha et al, 2017;Jiang et al, 2010). Therefore, the enhanced laying performance by the eubiotic mixture 1 supplementation in our trial was not obtained by the regulation of FI of the hens, but it could rather be due to their probiotic/eubiotic effects at the sites of digestion and absorptions improving digestibility and uptake of nutrients.…”

“…This improvement did not associated with any increase in feed intake (FI) of the broiler chickens in this experiment. In generally, the monogastric animals did not increase their FI with the diets supplemented with probiotic, prebiotics and essential plant oils (Fallah, 2016;Gao et al, 2008;Sarica et al, 2009). Supplementing the diets with 0.5 and 1.0% of eubiotic mixture 1 at commercial condition is highly recommended to enhance the growth rate.…”

Body conformation and morphometry of some internal organs of Pharaoh quail of different ages

“…It was 72.2% in younger birds and 72.5% in older birds. In another study (Sarica et al, 2009), which evaluated the effect of new feed additives (e.g. flavomycin, probiotic and prebiotic) on carcass quality, carcass yield and intestinal characteristics of 35-day-old male Japanese quail showed a higher percentage of small intestine (91.2%) than in our study.…”

“…Japanese quail are significantly more often used as experimental animals in scientific research. It was found that the weight, body conformation, and morphometry of internal organs of quail are influenced by many factors such as birds' age (Yalcin et al, 1995;Mihailov, 2006;Mihailov et al, 2008) and sex (Shata, 2001), type and composition of feed (Tarasewicz et al, 2007), type of feed additives (Aydin et al, 2004;Sarica et al, 2009;Bonos et al, 2010;Teshfam et al, 2011), rearing methods (Kul et al, 2006), stocking density (Abdel-Azeem, 2010) and ambient temperature (Özbey et al, 2004). Mihailov et al (2008) observed that the digestive tract of Japanese quail becomes morphologically and functionally mature between 7 and 14 days of age, after which the linear changes in the digestive tract are less significant.…”

Japanese quail performance, intestinal microflora, and molecularresponses to screened wheat and multienzyme diet

“…Sarica et al (14) did not observe differences in quail growth performance when quails were fed wheat-based diets and enzymes. Langhout and Schutte (15) reported that wheat-based diets and enzyme supplementation did not bring changes in broiler chickens feed intake.…”