EFFECT OF LEAD POLLUTED DIETS ON GROWTH AND PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY OF JAPANESE QUAIL AND ITS ALLEVIATION BY DIETARY PECTIN SUPPLEMENTATION

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Poult. Dept., Fac. Agric., Zagazig Univ., Egypt

Abstract

The present study was carried out to test the effect of using pectin to alleviate the toxic effect of lead on absolute growth rate, relative growth rate and productive efficiency in Japanese quail. A total number of 336 Japanese quail chicks (one week old), were randomly divided into 7 groups (48 chicks/each group), each group had 4 replicates (12 chicks/each). Quail chicks in all treatments were similar in the average initial body weight (38.7 g). A completely randomized design experiment was performed including seven groups. The first group of birds was served as control. While the 2nd and 3rd group of quails fed a diet supplemented with 1.0 and 3.0 g of pectin/kg diet, respectively. The 4th and 5th groups fed a diet supplemented with 0.5 and 1.0 g of lead/kg diet, respectively. The 6th and 7th groups fed a diet supplemented with 1.0 g of pectin and 0.5 g of lead/kg diet and 3.0 g of pectin and 1.0 g of lead/kg diet, respectively. Growth performance including absolute growth rate, relative growth rate and production efficiency were studied.The results of the present work could be summarized as follows: Quail birds fed the control diet and those fed diet containing pectin level of  3 g/kg diet and lead as 0.5 g/kg diet showed significantly (P<0.01) the highest measure in each of absolute growth rate and relative growth rate. The productive efficiency of quails treated by pectin at 1 g/kg and 0.5 lead g/kg diet showed the lowest estimates in comparison with the other groups without significant differences.In conclusion, pectin could be used in quail diets to diminish the deleterious effects of lead.

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