The effect of dietary protein levels and synbiotic on performance parameters, blood characteristics and carcass yields of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix Japonica)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of synbiotic on performance parameters, blood characteristics and carcass yields of Japanese quails fed diets containing different levels of protein. In a completely randomized design with 3 x 3 factorial arrangements, 720-day-old healthy Japanese quails were randomly allocated into 9 groups with 4 replicates of 20 chicks. Treatments consisted of combination of 3 levels of crude protein (CP): A) sufficient protein diet (24%, high CP) from 0 to 42 days of age; B) low protein diet (22.08%, low CP) from 0 to 42 days of age; C) sufficient protein diet from 0 to 21 days-low protein diet from 21 to 42 (medium CP) days of age and three levels of synbiotic, without, recommended and 150% of recommended levels, respectively. The results showed that there were no significant differences in feed conversation ratio, feed intake and body weight among treatments due to the interaction of CP and synbiotic levels. However, body weight and daily weight gain and feed conversation ratio improved (P<0.05) for bird fed medium and high CP compared with birds fed low CP in diet. The level of serum triglyceride decreased significantly (P<0.05) by adding different levels of synbiotic in diet. However, the effects of synbiotic supplementation on other blood parameters (cholesterol, total protein serum, uric acid, HDL and LDL) were not statistically significant among the groups (P>0.05). The effect of CP and synbiotic levels on the carcass yields of quail were not statistically significant (P>0.05)

Effects of dietary addition of synbiotic on the performance, carcass traits, and serum parameters of Japanese quails

“…However, the addition of 0.1% Syn reduced the AST level, being inconsistent with the results of Cakir et al (2008) and Vahdatpour et al (2011). The addition of Syn reduced total cholesterol level (Mousa et al, 2014) and increased the HDL level (Sharifi et al, 2011), which is consistent with the results of this study. The supplementation of Syn increased the serum HDL level which is the "good" cholesterol and decreased the abdominal fat percentage, showing positive effect of Syn on the lipid mechanism.…”

“…In terms of performance, synbiotics were effective in improving the growth of poultry, which corresponded to the effect of supplementation of either probiotics or prebiotics in the diet of chickens. The fact that the addition of Syn had no effect on other internal organs and carcass parameters, except for abdominal fat weight and percentage, is consistent with other studies on quails (Sahin et al, 2008;Sharifi et al, 2011) and broilers (Elfaki and Mukhtar, 2015;Saiyed et al, 2015). Moreover, the fact that the addition of Syn reduced abdominal fat weight and percentage is consistent with the results of Saiyed et al (2015) and Mokhtari et al (2015).…”

“…The fact that the use of Syn as a feed additive had no effect on AST, total cholesterol, HDL, TP, and ALB levels at day 21 is consistent with the result of Sharifi et al (2011). The fact that the addition of 0.4% Syn at day 42 increased the AST level is similar to the result of Vahdatpour et al (2011).…”

“…However, the manner in which Syn affects protein metabolism is not fully known. In contrast to the present results, some studies have reported that adding Syn does not affect the TP and ALB levels (Sahin et al, 2008;Sharifi et al, 2011).…”

“…Probiotic and prebiotic supplementations that decrease absorption in the gastrointestinal tract and/or the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver can lead to a reduction in the serum cholesterol of broiler chickens fed probiotic-and prebiotic-supplemented diets (Mohan et al, 1996). Contrary to these results, some other studies have reported that this does not have an effect on the total cholesterol and HDL levels (Sahin et al, 2008;Sharifi et al, 2011). The addition of Syn increased the TP and ALB levels, which is consistent with the results of Tufan et al (2015).…”