Effect of feeding edible mushroom and savory on performance, apparent nutrient digestibility and immune responses of Japanese quails

In order to investigate the effect of edible mushroom and savory on performance and nutrients apparent digestibility and humoral immune responses 120 one-day old Japanese quail chick were used in a completely randomized design, with 6 experimental treatments, 4 replications and 5 chicks per replicate. Rearing period lasted for 5 weeks. Experimental groups were: control (with no additives), antibiotic virginiamycin (15 ppm), edible mushroom and savory, each one in 2 levels (10 and 20 g/kg). Production indices were measured weekly and were reported for entire period. In order to study the humoral immune response, 0.2 ml of Sheep Red Blood Cell (SRBC) suspension was injected on day 28 of age and antibody titers were determined by hemaglutination assay on day 35. Also Newcastle vaccine B1 was used on day 21 for all birds and antibody titers were measured 2 weeks after vaccination. In order to measure the apparent digestibility of feed nutrients, 2 g of TiO2 per kg of feed, as an exotic marker, was used. Results showed that final body weight and body weight gain were not affected significantly by experimental treatments (P>0.05). Usage of 1% edible mushroom in diet and 1 (661.1 g) and 2% (589.9 g) of savory increased feed intake in comparison with control group (P<0.05). Nutrient apparent digestibility was not affected by experimental treatments (P>0.05). Based on the results of this experiment, supplementation of Japanese quail’s feed with 1 and 2% of edible mushroom and savory had no positive effect on performance and feed apparent digestibility, but 2% of edible mushroom increased antibody titers against SRBC in comparison with antibiotic and control groups.