Histological Investigations at an Intestinal Level on Laying Quails Fed with Fodders Supplemented with Different Additives (Sel-Plex, Actigen and Bio-Mos)

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to observe and highlight the possible influence of prebiotics (BioMos and Actigen) and organic Selenium (Sel-Plex), administered in the feeds of laying quails, on the intestinal mucosa and the impact it has on the production and consumption performances of the laying quails.The research has been carried out on 132 laying quails, assigned to 4 groups, each group consisting of 33 birds; a control group fed with combined fodder without any additives and 3 experimental groups fed with additives supplemented fodders –Actigen (0.08%) in experimental group 1, Bio-Mos (0.12%) in experimental group 2 and organic Selenium (Sel-Plex –0.04%) in experimental group 3. The experimental period was 26 weeks (from the age of 6 weeks until the age of 32 weeks). The lying quails were individually weighted at the beginning, at the middle and at the end of the experimental period.The main histological investigations that were carried out at the end of the experimental period consisted of the determination of the villi height, microvilli height and the subsequent intestinal absorption surface; also the body mass evolution, laying intensity and feed conversion were monitored. The birds in all the groups were kept in the same rearing conditions, throughout the entire experimental period.The recorded results confirm the positive influence of the used prebiotics (Bio-Mos and Actigen) and organic Selenium (Sel-Plex) on the intestinal mucosa by increasing the nutrient absorption surface thus explaining the improvement of the production performances and feed conversion in all the experimental groups, compared to the control.