the positive effects of dietary fennel seeds and enzyme supplementations in low-protein diet of growing japanese quail on growth performance through improved the intestinal morphology parameters

this study aimed to evaluate the effects of dietary fennel seed and enzyme supplementations in low-protein diet of growing japanese quail on growth performance, carcass characteristics, blood parameters, intestinal microbiology and morphology parameters. a total number of 400, one day-old japanese quails were weighed and randomly assigned to four groups, each of them consisted of four replicates in a completely randomized design [1) control diet, 2) low- crude protein diet, 3) low- crude protein diet + fennel seeds and 4) low- crude protein diet + fennel seeds + multi-enzyme supplementation]. the lowest weight gain and feed conversion ratio were observed in birds fed low-protein diets (p<0.05) compared to other groups during period total. carcass characteristics and counts of lactobacillus spp. and escherichia coli of cecum segment were not influenced by groups. dietary low-protein induced higher triglyceride compared to the dietary low protein+ fennel seed groups (p<0.05). dietary fennel seed and enzyme supplementations in low-protein diets resulted in an improvement in intestinal morphology (p<0.01) compared to low- protein group. taken together, our data indicate that addition of fennel seed and enzyme supplementations in low-protein diet of growing japanese quail increase the growth performance through improved the intestinal morphology parameters.