Effects of Organic Acids Supplement on Performance, Egg Traits, Blood Serum Biochemical Parameters and Gut Microflora in Female Japanese Quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

ABSTRACT This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of acetic acid, lactic acid, and butyric acid on the production performance, egg parameters (quality and quantity traits), blood and liver serum biochemical parameters and gastrointestinal tract microorganism on female Japanese quails. A total of 640 female Japanese quails aged 35-84 days were housedfor eight treatments with four replicates. They were arranged in completely randomized design (CRD) to evaluate the effects of basal diet (BD) with a supplement of acetic acid (AA), lactic acid (LA) and butyric acid (BA). The performance parameters to study this effect are feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg traits such as egg weight, egg production, and egg mass along with specific gravity, internal quality unit (IQU), yolk and albumen indexes, and eggshell traits such as weight, thickness, and surface. It also includes blood serum biochemical parameters such as cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL, LDL, albumin, globulin, glucose, and gastrointestinal tract microflora (E.Coli and Salmonella). Eight dietary treatments were formulated by addition of organic acids such as BD without organic acids additive, BD with 124 mg/kg AA additive, BD with 104 mg/kg LA additive, BD with 113 mg/kg BA additive, BD with 63.5 mg/kg AA+53.5 mg/kg LA additive, BD with 63.5 mg/kg AA+57 mg/kg BA additive, BD with 53.5 mg/kg LA+57 mg/kg BA additive and BD with 41.6 mg/kg AA+35 mg/kg LA+37 mg/kg BA additive. The results showed that the diets containing BD+LA+BA+AA and BD+AA alone considerably increased feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg weight, egg production and egg mass (p<0.01). The diets containing BD+AA and BD+LA significantly affected some quality traits such as eggshell thickness, eggshell weight (p<0.01), shell surface, and IQU (p<0.05). The diets containing BD+AA and BD+LA alone increased serum cholesterol, HDL, albumin, globulin and total protein significantly (p<0.01). Moreover, the groups containing BD+AA and BD+LA significantly decreased triglyceride contents in serum (p<0.05). The results showed that the diets containing BD+LA and BD+BA significantly decreased the E.Coli and Salmonella population in the gastrointestinal tract (p<0.01). Based on the experiment, it can beinferred that LA alone, or in combination with other organic acids, improved and showed positive effects on performance and egg traits in female Japanese quail.