Effect of different levels of dietary tomato pomace on performance, chick quality parameters and meat malondialdehyde content of progeny in quail breeder's

Use of alternative feed ingredients such as tomato pomace for poultry diets is an important factor of successful poultry production in many parts of the world. Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), is one of the popular vegetables that used in food preparations. Commercial processing of tomato produces a large amount of waste named totato pomace that represent one of the energy and protein rich sources. About 10% to 30% of the raw tomato weight becomes waste. Tomato pomace is a mixture of tomato peels, cores culls, pulp, crushed seeds and unprocessed green tomatoes that remain after the processing of tomato for juice, paste, puree, soups and/or ketchup. Tomato pomace is an inexpensive and primary by-product of tomato manufacturing that have been used for poultry nutrition. It consists mainly of the skins, seeds and hard tissues of the whole tomatoes. It is a good source of protein and some amino acids such as lysine, good source of pigments for yolk and meat and a good source of vitamin B and vitamin E but is limited in energy due to the high fiber content. The composition of tomato pomace varies according to agricultural and processing practices, the degree of drying, moisture removal and separation of cellulose. Tomato pomace is recommended for ruminants such as cattle and dairy cow feed due to the ability of these animals to digest fiber. Recently it is used for nutrition of laying and breeder birds.

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of tomato pomace in breeder quails on performance and different organs weights, the quality of newly hatched chicks and the amount of malondialdehyde in meat of progeny. A total of 160 Japanese quail were allocated in a completely randomized design to four treatments of 0.0 (control treatment without tomato pomace), 4, 8 and 12% tomato pomace during five weeks. Each treatment had four replicates (two males and eight females were in each replicate). The diets of breeders and the growing quails was formulated acocording the nutrient requirements of quils (NRC, 1994). Tomato pomace was only fed to quail breeder. Before the experiment, the nutrients contents of both corn and soybean meal were analyzed by near infrared spectroscopy (NIR). The birds had free acess to feed and water during the breeder and growing periods. A lighting schedule of 16L: 8D and 23L: 1D was imposed respectively during the breeder and growing periods. During the week 5 of breeder feeding program, 25 fertile eggs from each replicate (100 eggs from each treatment) were collected for hatchery. The protocol for this study was approved by animal care and committee of the Urmia University. Ten newly hatched chicks were used for determination of chick quality parameters at hatch according the Tuna method. Forty one day old quail chiks from each treatment were divided to four replicate pens and raised for five weeks. At the end of the experiment (day 35 of age), the birds were slaughtered and the weigths of carcass indices and internal organs were determined. Moreover, the breast meat samples were collected and used for determination of malondialdehyde content. All the data were analyzed by SAS (9.1) according the compeletely randomized design with four treatments and four replicates each. Difference among the treatment means were tested for significance using Duncan test (p < 0.05).

The results showed that the consumption of different tomato pomace in breeder quail had no effects on progeny feed consumption, weight gain and feed conversion ratio during the different weeks and whole the period (P>0.05). Althogh there were no difference between the treatments for feed consumption but the quils hatched from the eggs of 8% tomato pomace fed birds had numerically higher feed intake as compared to the other quails. Moreover there were no effects of treatments on internal organs and carcass characteristcs at day 35 of age (P>0.05). No effects of tomato pomace were detected on activity of newly hatched chicks (P>0.05). The down and appearance of newly hatched chicks of quails fed 8% tomato pomace had the highest quality between the treatment groups (p < 0.05). The quality of retracted yolk, eyes, navel area, remaninig membrane and remaining yolk of chicks from the quails fed 4 and 6% tomato pomace was highest and significantly higher than those of chicks from the birds fed the control and highest tomato pomace level (12%) (p < 0.05). The legs of chicks belong to the birds fed the highest tomato pomace level was lowest (p < 0.05) but there was no significant difference between the other treatments for leg quality. The eyes quality of chicks from quails fed 4% tomato pomace was highest whereas the lowest eye quality was related to the chicks of 0.0 and 12% tomato pomace fed birds (p < 0.05). The consumption of all totamto pomace levels caused the decreased breast malondialdehyde content of progeny at week 5 of age (p < 0.05). The breeder quails fed 4 and 8% tomato pomace had the highest decrease in meat malondialdehyde content of progeny as compared to the control birds (p < 0.05).

Totally, consumption of tomato pomace in the diets of breeder quails have no effects on performance parameters of progeny birds. Consumption of 8% tomato pomace in breeder quail improves the body antioxidant status and quality of by newly hatched quality. Higher tomato pomace feeding to quail breeder (12%) increases the dietary fiber and possibly decrease the nutrients bioavailability and hence causes the lower quality of newly hatched chicks.