Supplementation of Withania somnifera L. roots and productive performance of heat stressed Japanese quail

Abstract EN

An experiment was conducted to assess the anti-stress efficacy of Withania somnifera root on prod-uctive performance of Japanese quail hens reared under high environmental temperature (27-37-27ºC).

Three hundred Japanese quail hens six weeks old were randomly distributed into five treat-ments : T0 = control, T1 and T2 = quails supplemented orally with 50, 100 mg / kg / day Withania somnifera root ethanolic extract respectively, while T3 and T4 = quails received 1 and 2 g / kg diet Withania somnifera root powder respectively.

The productive characteristics included: feed consumption, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio, in addition to total mortality percentage.

Results showed that feed consumption increased significantly (p ≤ 0.01) in quails received 1g / kg root powder (T3) in comparison with all other treatments (T0, T1, T2 and T4) whereas T2 group was the lowest in this character.

On the other hand, supplemented quails with 100mg / kg ethanolic extract (T2) resulted in significant (p ≤ 0.05) increasing in body weight gain as compared with control group (T0), yet, all treated groups didn’t differ significantly among each others.

The best (p ≤ 0.05) feed conversion ratio was obtained when the quails supplemented with root ethanolic extract (T1andT2) or with 2g / kg diet of root powder (T4) in comparison with control.

Withania somnifera root as ethanolic extract or powder resulted in significant (p ≤ 0.05) reduction in mortality percentage in comparison with untreated group.