EFFECT OF DIETARY SUPPLEMENTATION WITH DRIED GARLIC AND THYME ON GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF JAPANESE QUAIL

Abstract

The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of dietary inclusion of dried garlic and thyme on productive performance, carcass traits and some blood parameters of growing Japanese quail. Two experiments were conducted simultaneously. In each experiment, three hundreds, two-week-old, unsexed Japanese quail were randomly divided into five experimental groups, each with three equal replications. Ten experimental diets were formulated to contain graded levels of dried garlic (0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0%) or dried thyme (0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0%) and used in experiments 1 and 2, respectively. All quail were fed their respective experimental diets and managed similarly from 2 to 6 weeks of age. Growth performance of Japanese quail were evaluated as feed intake (FI), live body weight (LBW), body weight gain (BWG), feed conversion ratio (FCR) and economic efficiency of production (EEP). At 6 weeks of age, some carcass traits and certain blood plasma parameters of quail were also estimated. The results obtained could be summarized as follows: In experiment 1, quail fed the garlic-containing diets attained significantly heavier final LBW and better FCR; but FI and carcass traits were not affected, compared with their control counterparts. Feeding the garlic-containing diets up to 2.0% positively affected EEP compared with the control group. In addition, feeding the garlic-containing diets led to significant reductions in blood plasma levels of glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), and activity of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) while level of high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) was significantly increased; but activity of alanine aminotransferase was not affected, compared with the control group. Quail fed diets containing 2.0 and 3.0% dried garlic showed significantly higher levels of plasma total protein and albumin compared with those of the control birds. In experiment 2, quail fed thyme-containing diets gave superior means of final LBW, FCR and in EEP (up to 1.5% of DT), but FI and carcass traits were not affected compared with their control group. Blood plasma levels of glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol and LDL-C, and activity of AST were significantly decreased, while levels of total protein, albumin and HDL-C were increased but activity of alanine aminotransferase was not affected, due to feeding the thyme-containing diets compared with the control group. In conclusion, taking the economical aspect into account, the obtained results indicate that dietary supplementation with dried garlic (up to 2%) and dried thyme (up to 1.5%) can exert a beneficial effect on the performance of Japanese quail under the conditions of the present study.