Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Poultry Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, New Valley University, Egypt.
2
Anim. Prod. Res. Institute, Agric. Res. Center, Ministry of Agric., Egypt.
3
Dep.of Poult. Breed. Res. Anim. Prod. Res. Inst., Agric. Res. Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
Abstract
One hundred and eight 8 wk-old Japanese quail were distributed randomly into six different dietary treatments in a 2 x 3 factorial with three replicates, each containing 6 birds (2 males and 4 females), assigning experimental unit to investigate the effect of vinegar (acetic acid) and date residues (date’s by-product) on egg production, fertility and hatchability percentages, some physiological characteristics, blood parameters, hormones, antioxidant indices and immunity parameter. Average temperature ranged between 40°C and 43°C with 50 % relative humidity from 8 to 14 weeks of age. Dietary treatments were date residues levels (0 and 10%) supplemented into diets with three levels of acetic acid (0.0, 0.5 and 1ml /liter water) in drinking water. Results showed that dates residues and vinegar (acetic acid) and interactions between them had significant effect on all the productive performance (egg weight, egg production, egg mass/hen/day, feed conversion as (g feed/g egg)) and improved significantly (P<0.05) fertility and hatchability percentages while decreased significantly (P<0.05) non pipping embryos (%) and embryonic mortality (%). All treatments and interactions between them increased significantly some blood hematological, blood biochemical parameters, antioxidant indices and immunity parameter and hormones of quail, i.e., total protein, albumin, total lipids, HDL, GPX ,GSH, SOD, IgG, progesterone and T3, T4 hormones, but WBCs count in all treatments were slightly increased in number, while serum cholesterol, glucose concentrations, AST and ALT were decreased significantly (P<0.05) birds' in compared with control group. The nutrients digestibility were improved by treatment groups and interactions between them. The counts of total aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and total coliform of chick intestinal were decreased due to add different treatments compared with the control. In conclusion, It may be the application of date residues 10% (in feed) with vinegar (acetic acid) in drinking water (0.5 or 1ml/liter) improved the productive performance such as egg production, fertility, hatchability percentages, some physiological parameters and nutrients digestibility of laying Japanese quail during summer season.
Keywords
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