Effect of dietary ginger and cinnamon oils supplementation on growing Japanese quail performance

الملخص EN

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of dietary antibiotic and essential oil supplementation on growth performance ]live body weight (LBW), daily body weight gain (LBWG), feed intake (FI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR)[ and carcass characteristics of growing Japanese quail.

A total number of 360 one week old Japanese quail chicks were randomly distributed into 8 treatment groups each of 45 chicks with three replicates )15 chicks each).

Chicks of all experimental groups had nearly the same average initial weight.

The 1^st group was fed the basal diet without supplementation as control, the 2^nd was fed the basal diet supplemented with 0.50g antibiotic (colistine)/kg diet.

The 3^rd and 4^th groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0.50 ml and 1.0 ml ginger oil (GO)/kg diet, respectively.

The 5^th and 6^th groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0.5 ml and 1.0 ml cinnamon oil (CO) /kg diet, respectively.

The 7^th and 8^th groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0.50 ml and 1.0 ml /kg mixture of GO plus CO (1: 1), respectively.

Results showed that chicks received 0.25 ml GO and 0.25 ml CO/kg diet had significantly (P<0.05) higher LBW compared with those received 0.5 g antibiotic /kg diet.

Daily body weight gain significantly (P<0.05) increased when birds received diets containing different levels of GO or CO and 0.25 ml GO +0.25 ml CO/kg diet as compared with birds received 0.5 g antibiotic/kg diet.

No significant differences in feed intake were recorded among dietary treatments during all the studied experimental period (1-3, 3-5 and 1-5 weeks of age).

The better feed conversion ratio (FCR) value was recorded by chicks fed diet supplemented with 1.0 ml CO/kg diet, while the poorest FCR value was recorded by chicks fed 0.5 g antibiotic /kg.

In addition, percent of carcass, dressing and gizzard were significantly (P<0.01) affected by dietary treatments.

It could be concluded that GO and CO could act as a good alternative to antibiotics (colistine) in growing Japanese quail diets.